Biographical Dictionary of British Coleopterists

Michael Darby

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B

B., C.G.

Tony Irwin informs me that there are a number of insects bearing the initials GCB in E.A. Butler's foreign collection of Coleoptera and Hemiptera at Norwich Museum. (MD 10/03)

BABINGTON, Charles Cardale (23 November 1808-22 July 1895)

Born at Ludlow, Shropshire, the son of Joseph Babington (1768-1826), a physician. Educated at Charterhouse and at Cambridge where he obtained B.A.(1830), M.A.(1833) and first became interested in plants, the study of which eventually led him to become Professor of Botany at Cambridge from 1861-1895.

Babington's work on botany also involved him in entomology, and in 1833 he was a founder member of the Entomological Society. It would appear, however, that it was the extensive field work all over Britain (he also visited Iceland in 1846) which he undertook in connection with the publication of his magnum opus the botanical Manual, (eight editions in the 19th century alone) that really fired his interest in the Coleoptera in particular. By 1860 the Ent. Annual listed Coleoptera as his only interest but noted that he had stopped collecting, and was 'happy to give information'. Babington was clearly known to Charles Darwin as is clear from a letter in the latter's published correspondence to W.D. Fox dated 1 April 1829: 'I have caught Mr Harbour letting Babington have the first pick of the beettles [sic]..' It is not surprising, therefore, that he should have been chosen to describe some of the beetle species (Dytiscidae) from the Beagle's voyage.

Babington was an enthusiastic committee man. Whilst at Cambridge he became Secretary of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, a position he held for many years, and in 1830 he joined the Linnean Society. Three years later, on the occasion of the first meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, he was appointed Secretary of the natural history section, and from that time until 1871 he was rarely absent from their annual meetings. From 1853-1861 he acted as President of the section. In 1836 he was one of the founder members of the Ray Club, of which he acted as Secretary for fifty five years, and he was on the Council of the Ray Society. In 1840 he was one of the founders of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and in 1850 he joined the Cambrian Archaeological Association, serving as Chairman of its committee from 1855 to 1885. He was also a member of many other national and local societies.

Babington married Anna Maria the daughter of John Walker on 3 April 1866. There is a portrait of him by William Tizard in St, John's College. The best account is his autobiographical Memorials, Journal and Botanical Correspondence Cambridge, 1897; and there are shorter notices in DNB (Supplement), and in Alumni Cantabrigiensis II (1), 1940. (MD 9/01)

Duff (1993), p.3 records that Babington 'was probably the first resident Somerset coleopterist as he came to live in Bath at the age of 14'. (MD 10/03)

BACKHOUSE, J.0.

Various references in Stephens (1828-1831) e.g. 1, p.56. (MD 9/01)

BADGLEY, W.F.

Collected Platyrhopalopus badgleyi in Assam which W.W. Fowler named after him. He served as a Colonel in the army. (MD 9/01)

BADHAM, Charles David (1806-1857)

Published two books which mention beetles: The Question concerning the Sensibility, Intelligence and instinctive Actions of Insects, Paris, 1837 and Insect Life, 1845. In the latter he describes himself as 'Late Radcliffe Travelling Fellow of the University of Oxford, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and Member of the Entomological Society of France.' (MD 9/01)

BAGNALL Richard Siddoway (b. 14 July 1889)

Primarily known for his work on minor insect groups and terrestrial invertebrates, but he did publish one or two articles about beetles including: 'Notes on some Coleoptera imported into our northern ports' EMM, 42, 1906, pp.36-38. Coleoptera and other insects collected by him were donated to the Hancock Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne between 1904-1909. For a biographical note, etc. see L.A.Mound, 'A review of R.B. Bagnall's Thysanoptera Collections' Bull. BMNH. (Ent. Suppl.) 2, 1968, pp. 1-180. (MD 9/01)

BAIKIE, William Balfour (27 August 1825 - 12 December 1864)

Born at Kirkwall, Orkney, the oldest son of Captain John Baikie RN. Educated at the local grammar school and the University of Edinburgh where he obtained his MD. Entered the Royal Navy in 1848 as a surgeon and after serving on various ships in the Mediterranean, became assistant surgeon at the Haslar Hospital, Gosport, from 1851-54. Here he came under the influence of Sir Roderick Murchison who procured for him the post of surgeon and naturalist on the expedition to the River Niger in 1854 which travelled over two hundred and fifty miles further up river than any previous expedition and about which Baikie published a Narrative of an Exploring Voyage up the River Niger, 1856. In April of the following year he commanded a further expedition to the Niger which was disbanded after his ship sank. Baikie carried on alone, however, and bought land at Lukoja where he eventually became the head of a considerable native settlement. In this capacity he was responsible for opening up roads and establishing new markets. He died in Sierra Leone while returning home for a well earned period of leave.

Baikie's interest in Coleoptera appears to have commenced while he was at the Haslar hospital. He assisted Arthur Adams with his Manual of Natural History, 1854, and with his 'Systematic List of the Coleoptera found in the vicinity of Alverstoke, South Hants.', Zoologist, 14-16, 1856-58. He is listed in the Ent. Annual, 1866, p.2 as interested in Coleoptera, Myriapoda and Arachnida, and is known to have returned from the first Niger expedition with extensive collections. To the obituary listed by Gilbert (1977) may be added Illustrated London News, 46, 1865, p. 88 (with portrait) and RGS Journal, 35, 1865, p.123. There is also an account of him in the DNB.

Baikie also published an account of the mammals and birds of the Orkneys in 1848. (MD 9/01)

BAILEY, C.E.

Hancock & Pettit (1981) notice that C.E. Bailey gave Coleoptera and general British insects (some captured near Carnforth) to the Manchester Museum. This may be the Charles Bailey who published two articles in Mem. Manchester Lit. Phil. Soc. 'On the decrease of entomologists' (6, 1889, p.90) and 'On so called carnivorous plants' (7, 1897, p.41). (MD 9/01)

BAILEY, E.

Published a note entitled 'Death Watch' in Scientific Gossip, (2), 1867, pp. 254-55. (MD 9/01)

BAILEY, James Harold (1870 - 22 March 1909)

Received his education in Manchester, firstly in a school under the well-known conchologist Dr Adams, and later at Owens College where he graduated in 1891. Married in 1895 and after practising as a Doctor of Medicine in Manchester, moved to the Isle of Man in about 1902 because of his wife's ill health. There J.R. le B. Tomlin records that he was a 'trenchant and convincing speaker in the local Debating Society, (EMM, 45, 1909, pp.260-61). He had one son, and died at the early age of 39, in Port Erin.

Bailey published his first article on 'Coleoptera in Middlesex' in Ent., 19, 1886, pp. 187-88 and followed this with various notes in the EMM, including an obituary of his friend Joseph Chappell. It was through Chappell and Samuel Stevens that he is recorded to have switched his early interest in Lepidoptera to Coleoptera. Bailey's great forte was his knowledge of the fauna of the Isle of Man. In December 1907 he delivered his Vice-Presidential address on this subject to the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society and at the time of his death he had all but finished a book on the Manx Coleoptera.

There are obituaries in EMM, 45, 1909, pp.260-61 (by J.R. le B. Tomlin); Dt. Ent. Ztschr., 1909, p. 112 (by W. Horn) and Ent. Rdsch., 27, 1910, p.10. A collection of mainly Isle of Man material in 22 drawers was purchased by the Manx Museum in 1910 and is maintained separately. Further information about this collection is given in Hancock & Pettitt (1981). (MD 9/01)

BAINBRIDGE, William (d. November 1841)

This is probably the same Bainbridge who is mentioned by Stephens (1828-1831, I, pp.11, 12 etc.). He was a Fellow of the Entomological Society from 1833 until his death, and in 1836 was appointed Curator of the collections. Neave & Griffin (1933, pp. 66-67) record that his wages were initially six shillings a day for three days a week and that his main task was to add red labels to distinguish the Kirby collection from the rest. A committee of Messers Hanson, Shuckard and Westwood was set up to supervise his work.

Bainbridge exhibited at the meetings of the ESL., e.g. 2 March 1840 when he showed a 'monstrous Lucanus cervus one of the mandibles of which was strangely distorted', and published one article in the Trans.: 'On several species of Balboceras Kirby from New Holland in the collection of the Rev. Hope' (39 1842, pp.79-83). He also published 'Some new species of Cetonidae in the collection of the Rev. F.W.Hope with observations on the genus Osmoderma' in ANMT., 6, 1841, pp.481-82. (MD 9/01)

BAINBRIGGE FLETCHER, Thomas

see FLETCHER, T.B.

BAIRSTOW, S.D.

Smith (1986, p.101) notices that a collection of Coleoptera made by Bairstow in the Cape of Good Hope was acquired by the HDO in 1882. (MD 9/01)

BAKER C.F.S.

There are beetles collected by him in the Museum at Colombo, Sri Lanka. (all bear printed labels dated 1916) and various references in G.J. Arrow's FBI volumes. (MD 9/01)

BAKER, Henry (8 May 1698 - 25 November 1775)

Born in Chancery Lane London, the son of William Baker, a clerk in Chancery. Apprenticed at the age of 15 to John Parker a bookseller. At the close of his indentures in 1720 he became involved with the education of deaf mutes, and 'his services being in great demand among the upper classes, he soon realised a substantial fortune'. His remarkable success attracted the attention of Daniel Defoe whose daughter Sophia Baker he subsequently married in April 1729. Until the late 1730s Baker wrote and published poetry, and in 1728, under the name Henry Stonecastle he began with Defoe the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal. He is said to have been responsible for the introduction of rhubarb into England.

Baker had a wide-ranging interest in natural history which resulted in his becoming involved in microscopy, a subject on which he published books in 1743 and 1753, both of which went through several editions, and in beetles which he appears to have collected. He published a note on 'Some curious experiments and observations on a beetle that lived three years without food' in Phil. Trans., 41, 1740, pp.441-448.

Chalmers-Hunt (1976) records that Baker's antiquarian and natural history collections were sold at auction 13-23 March 1775, shortly before his death in the same year.

Baker was elected FSA and FRS in 1740, and was involved with the establishment of the Society of Arts in 1754. He is noticed in DNB which lists other sources. (MD 9/01)

BAKER, J.R.

Collections of insects, mainly Coleoptera, made in the New Hebrides and adjacent groups were given by Baker and the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund to the HDO in 1923 and 1927. Identifications for the 1923 collection exist in the archives. (Smith, 1986). (MD 9/01)

BAKEWELL, Robert (1810 - 25 December 1867)

Worked in the wool trade at Nottingham before moving to Australia where he lived for many years and built up a large collection of insects. Returned to England where he continued to collect. The Register of the insect collections in the NHM records that they acquired 515 Buprestids and 2,430 Llamellicorns from Bakewell's collection after his death, and that Bakewell 'bought Laferte's collection in 1860. This collection of Lamellicorns was purchased by Mr Bakewell of M. de Laferte. It was founded on Dejean's collection and was amalgamated with the collections of MM. Reiche, Dupont, Buquet etc., Gory'. The labels from the collection are pasted to the pages of the Register. I have not found any reference there to the collection of Heteromera which Musgrave, (1932) records the British Museum Trustees purchasing in 1871. Bakewell is recorded to have left Australian insects to Dr Howitt of Melbourne.

FES from 1857 and a member of the French Entomological Society from 1860. There is an obituary notice in EMM, 4. 1868, p. 211 and references to him in O.Janson's Journal in the Zoological Museum at Cambridge. (MD 9/01)

BALDEN, James

Published an 'Account of insects injurious to Forest Trees, especially the larch and pine' in Prize Essays and Trans. Highland Soc., (n.s.) 8, 1843, pp. 114-125. (MD 9/01)

BALE, S. (or J.)

Stephens (1828-1831, 1, p. 13) mentions that a Reverend S. Bale caught a specimen of Cicindela which was in the collection of A.H. Haworth. Other mentions by the same author give his initial as J. (MD 9/01)

BALFOUR-BROWNE, John W.A.F. (b. 1907)

Born in Larne, Northern Ireland, the son of William Alexander Francis Balfour-Browne the well known Coleopterist. Educated at Rugby School, and at Oxford (1925-1927) and Cambridge (1928-1931) Universities. Immediately after leaving Cambridge served as an economic entomologist to the Junta Geral, Madeira. In 1934 took up a post at the NHM where he worked in the Entomology Department becoming Head of the Coleoptyera Section, until his retirement in 1967. Apart from a few papers on Apion between 1942 and 1945, and an article on the nomenclature of the Cryptophagidae in 1953, almost all Balfour-Browne's work has been on the Dytiscidae (including Noteridae), Hydraenidae and Hydrophilidae. In these groups he has published some seventy articles, etc. between 1936 and 1979, covering the faunas of Fiji, China, Japan, Arabia, Africa, Tibet and other countries. He maintains a small reference collection of aquatic beetles only. His other material being deposited in collections at Paris, Tervuren, Honolulu, San Francisco, NHM, etc.. Harvey, Gilbert & Martin (1996) list various manuscript material at the NHM including notebooks, typescripts and correspondence.

FRES, FRZS and President of the Balfour-Browne Club. (Information from J.W.A.F. B-B.) (MD 9/01)

BALFOUR-BROWNE, William Alexander Francis (1874 - 28 September 1967)

There are detailed accounts of Frank Balfour-Browne by Robert Angus in EMM, 103, 1967, pp. 286-288 and by A.R. Waterson in Yearbook of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1966-7, pp.8-10. His own autobiographical work Water Beetles and Other Things (Dumfries 1962) also gives a great deal of information. The following notes are abstracted from Angus's account: Born in 1874 the son of a distinguished Barrister, and from an early age showed a keen interest in natural history. Educated at St. Paul's School, London where he won a prize for a collection of beetles taken in the school playground. Went to Magdalen College, Oxford where he read Natural Science taking his B.A. degree in Botany in 1896 and was awarded a half blue for cycling.

After graduating he decided that the Law might be a suitable career and after qualifying he was called to the Bar in 1898. A little over a year later he decided to return to natural science, this time to zoology. He had been impressed by the lack of field courses in this subject at Oxford compared with those in botany, and this influenced his decision. Appointed Assistant Naturalist at the Marine Biological Station at Plymouth, but soon after his marriage in 1902 took up the post of Director of the Sutton Broad Laboratory, famous as a pioneer freshwater biological station. It was while working at Sutton Broad that Balfour-Browne, encouraged by David Sharp, made a survey of the water beetles of the area of East Norfolk, and became aware of their distinct habitat associations.

In 1906 he took up the post of Lecturer and Demonstrator in Belfast. Moved in 1913 to Cambridge where he was Lecturer in Entomology, a post which he held until 1925. His successful course was eventually published as A Text-Book of Practical Entomology (1932). In 1925 decided to retire from teaching to devote his full time to water beetles, and with this in view moved to Somerset. Shortly after, however, he was persuaded to accept the Chair of Entomology at Imperial College, where he remained until finally retiring in 1930.

Balfour-Browne's revision of the difficult section of Haliplus Latreille appeared in 1915 (ANMT, (8) 15, pp.7-124), while his first account of the Deronectes depressus-elegans complex was published in 1919 (ibid., (9) 3, pp.293-308). Full time work on the water beetles enabled him to gather together a mass of information which served as the basis for his well known three volume work British Water Beetles, published by the Ray Society between 1940 and 1958 The last decade of the Professor's life brought a small number of papers covering such subjects as distribution and routes of arrival of British water beetles, in which he was particularly interested, and, stimulated by Kevan's revision of Helophorus F., on taxonomy. His final paper was published only weeks before his death at the advanced age of 93.

Balfour-Browne's collection, including his note books and card indexes, passed to the RSM in 1962. The Balfour-Browne Club is named after him. (MD 9/01)

BALY, Joseph Sugar (1816 - 27 March 1890)

Born in Warwick the eldest son of Joseph Baly. His brother was Price Richard Baly, the engineer. Educated at the Grammar school in Warwick and subsequently at St. George's Hospital, London and the infirmary at Shrewsbury. After graduating as a Doctor of Medicine he moved to Paris before returning to England, where he lived first in Leamington and then in London where he 'secured a very large practice and formed the friendship of many scientific men of the day, including the chiefs at the British Museum'. After his health broke down he returned to Warwick in about 1868 and remained there until his death in 1890. At various times he was Medical Officer of Health for Leamington and also medical officer of the Union Infirmary. He also served as a J.P. and was Honorary Curator of the Warwick Museum.

Baly's interest in entomology appears to have been stimulated initially by his work on microscopy. David Sharp recorded that about 1850 'he visited Mr S. Stevens, in Bloomsbury Street, in search of objects for his microscope, and he purchased a small collection of Indian Hymenoptera. He entered into a correspondence with Mr H.W. Bates, who was then in the Amazon Valley, and in the course of this informed Mr Bates that the marvels of insect structure revealed by his microscope led him to devote himself more exclusively to entomology. At that time the collections made by Wallace in the Malay Archipelago and by Bates in the Amazon Valley were arriving in this country and Baly having a good series of the phytophagous Coleoptera from them, found full occupation for his leisure time...'(Ent., 23, 1890, p.199). From this beginning Baly went on to become the foremost worker on this group of his day. He amassed a huge collection and described enormous numbers of new species in a series of articles and books which commenced with his 'Monograph of the Australian species of Chrysomela, Phyllocharis and allied genera'in Trans. ESL, (2)3, 1855, pp. 170-186, 241-263, and ended with descriptions of new species of Galerucinae in the year of his death. His best known publications are probably his Catalogue of the Hispidae in the British Museum (1858) and the 'Phytophaga Malayana, a revision of the phytophagous beetles of the Malay archipelago, with descriptions of the new species collected by Alfred R. Wallace' in Trans. ESL, 1865, pp.1-76 and 1867, pp. 77-300.

Baly's collection was purchased in parts by the NHM between 1880 and 1905 and amounted in all to some 28,000 specimens including more than 1200 types. Some Coleoptera and Hymenoptera were sold by Stevens on 25 November 1890. Insects other than beetles were purchased by the HDO in 1857 and March 1877.

Apart from the account by Sharp already mentioned, Gilbert (1977) lists a further five references. (MD 9/01)

BANCROFT, F.

A collection of beetles made by Bancroft amounting to about 800 specimens and including many given to him by K.C. Side, belonged to Ian M. White of the Nature Conservancy Council, Edinburgh in 1982. (MD 9/01)

BANKES, Eustace Ralph (1861 - 9 December 1929)

Primarily known as a Lepidopterist but did publish 'Abundance of Cetonia aurata in 1895' in EMM, 32, 1896, pp. 40-41, and 'Early appearance of Cicindela campestris' in ibid., 35, 1899, p. 93. Bankes was an active and successful field worker until about 1909 when he became ill. His library passed to the HDO and his Lepidoptera to the NHM, where there is also a large collection of his manuscript material. There are obituaries in EMM, 66, 1930, p. 63 (anon); Ent., 63, 1930, pp. 47-48 (R. Adkin) and Proc. ESL., 5, 1931, pp. 130-131 (K. Jordan). (MD 9/01)

BANKS, Edward

Published an article entitled 'Glow worm' in Scientific Gossip, 5, 1870, p. 71. Is this perhaps the same E. Banks who is listed in the Ent. Annual, 1857 as 'at Mr Stubbs 1, Sadler Street, Durham' (MD 9/01)

BANKS, H.H.

Collections of Hymenopera and Coleoptera from the Federated Malay States were acquired by the HDO in 1910 and 1911 (Smith, 1986, p.102) (MD 9/01)

BANKS, Sir Joseph (13 February 1743 - 19 June 1820)

There are numerous accounts of Banks, the well known botanist and traveller with Captain Cook and Dr Carl Solander on H.M.S. Endeavour to Australia, including one by a Coleopterist (C. MacKechnie Jarvis, 'Sir Joseph Banks, Bt., K.B. (Naturalist), 1743-1820' in Proc. SLENHS, 1943-4, pp.60-68). Others are listed in the comprehensive account in the DNB. All mention that Banks collected insects but give little further information.

Banks's collection, which includes Coleoptera, survives in the NHM and is interesting because it contains the types of many species described by Fabricius. In his 'Autobiography' (Trans. ESL, IV, 1845-7.) Fabricius explained that 'from 1772-1775 I spent the winters in Copenhagen and the summers in London. My friends Mr Banks and Dr Solander had returned from their voyage round the world, and had brought with them innumerable specimens of natural history and insects. I now lived very pleasantly. With Banks, Hunter and Drury, I found plenty of objects to engage my time...' Another entomologist who also regularly visited Banks at this time was C.P. Thunberg. Like Fabricius and Solander, Thunberg was also a pupil of Linnaeus.

In 1819, shortly before his death in the following year, Banks' collections passed to the Linnaean Society where they remained until 1863 when they were given to the NHM. Sometime after acquisition the collection was re-housed, all the insects except the Coleoptera which are now stored on the Coleoptera floor, being placed in two twenty-drawer cabinets on the Hymenoptera floor. The Coleoptera collection includes 180 species from Brazil, S. Africa, Madeira, India, Siam, China, America, Australia and other countries. Twenty of the Fabrician types are missing and these are listed in the Insect Department Register covering the year 1863, where all the other specimens are also listed. (MD 9/01)

BANNISTER, R.T. (d. 1979)

General Practioner who lived for many years in Cornwall after his marriage. Collected extensively in the County, his collection and the ledger containing all the information about it, passing to Truro museum after his death.

In 1936 he added Trogophloeus (Carpelimus) despectus Baudi to the British list (EMM., 72, 1936, pp.78-9) but subsequently deleted the record because the specimen was lost and he felt unsure of the identification, (ibid., 107, 1971, p.33). He added several species to the Cornish list (ibid., 101, 1965, p.15; 110, 1974, p.252; and 111, 1975, p.22).

Bannister also interested himself in Hemiptera, and was a member of the AES. (Information from Mrs Mildred Bannister, his widow). (MD 9/01)

BARBER, C.A.

Collected Rutelinae at Ootacamund (Arrow, G.J., Rutelinae, Desmonycinae, Euchirinae, FBI, 1917). This is probably the same Barber who gave ten Coleoptera from Antiqua and three from Dominica to the NHM in 1898. (MD 9/01)

BARBER, J.

Published 'The genus Quedius'in Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc., (2), 1866, i, p.95. (MD 9/01)

BARKER, C.N.

Insects, chiefly Coleoptera collected in Natal, Chimoio, Mozambique and Grahamstown between 1889 and 1904 were acquired by the HDO in 1903, 1904 and 1907. (Smith, 1986 p.102). (MD 9/01)

BARLEE, J.S.

Published 'The water beetle, Acilius sulcatus in Co. Dublin' in Irish Naturalists Journal, 6, 1937, p.253. (MD 9/01)

BARLOW, Edward

Published a number of notes on entomology in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and in India Museum Notes from 1894 including a list of the Melolonthini contained in the collection of the Indian Museum (1899, pp.234-273). (MD 9/01)

BARNARD, George (1830 - 11 March 1894)

Well known as an entomologist and ornithologist in Australia. Born in Chiselhurst, Kent but moved to Australia where he was stationed at Coomooboolaroo near Duaringal, Queensland. By 1891 his insect collection had increased to such an extent that he built a private museum to house it. He was much assisted by his wife and son Wilfred Bourne Barnard, the Lepidopterist. His publications were mainly about Lepidoptera. He died at Launceston and there is an obituary notice in Ent., 27, 1894, p. 228. He is also mentioned in Musgrave (1932). (MD 9/01)

BARNES, Albert John (fl. 1894-1932)

Lived at 3 Islip Street, Kentish Town, London from at least 1894 until 1905; 18 Raveley St, St. Pancras from 1908-12; at an unknown address at Crouch End from 1912-16, and finally from 1916-32 at 1 Ashley Street, Shrewsbury, where he became the County Recorder for Coleoptera for Shropshire and amassed a considerable collection (c.4000 specimens at least), and added numerous species to that county's list. The bulk of this collection is now with the North Hertfordshire Museums Service. Published notes in Trans. Cavadoc and Severn Valley Field Club, especially the Supplement: Record of Bare Facts. This material is now incorporated with the collection of D.G. Hall at Baldock. (Information from Trevor James) (MD 9/01)

BARON, F.H.

Hancock & Pettitt (1981) list a F.H. Baron as follows: 'Coleoptera + Lepidoptera. Ceylon. Information from list at Monkswood (I.T.E.). Kendal. NW 1223'. (MD 9/01)

BARRETT, Cyril J.

Published 'New records of Coleoptera from Offaly (Kings County)' in EMM, 78, 1942, pp.42-43 when a student at Tullabeg College, Tullamore, Kings Co. Ireland. Most of his specimens were identified by E. O'Mahoney who also verified his new county records. (MD 9/01)

BARRETT, Dorothy Heeneman

Physiologist who also worked on Coleoptera.

FRES from 1970. (MD 3/03)

BARRINGTON, Miss J.

Published two notes in EMM, 59, 1923, p. 91: 'Agabus brunneus Fab. in Dorset' and 'Notonecta Lalophila Edw. in Cambridgeshire', and 'Some notes on the aquatic Coleoptera of Somerset', ibid., 63, 1927, pp.174-180. (MD 9/01)

BARRON, Charles

Listed in the Ent. Annual, 1860, p.3 as interested in British Coleoptera, Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera. He was attached to the Museum of the Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar, Gosport. Chalmers-Hunt (1976) records that a collection of birds and mammals made by him were sold by Stevens on 12 June 1895. (MD 9/01)

BARROW, H.J.

Arrow, J.G., Rutelinae, Desmonycinae, Euchirinae, FBI, 1917, records that he collected Rutelinae at Kasauli in the Punjab. (MD 9/01)

BARROW, W.H.

Listed in Hancock & Pettitt (1979) as a dealer. Several hundred insects collected by him in 1960, mainly from Europe'but especially from Hyeres, in France, are at Liverpool Museum. Manuscript material relating to this collection was promised but never sent. (MD 9/01)

BARTINDALE, G.C.

Father of G.W.R. Bartindale. Lived at 16 Lostock Avenue, Poynton, Cheshire and before that at 156 Cumberland Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire. They are best known for their joint article 'The Coleoptera of the Macclesfield District' in EMM, 84, 1948, pp. 130-138. In this they recorded that they had started collecting beetles in the neighbourhood of Macclesfield in about 1932 and by 1948 had taken over 950 species. Most of their determinations were made by H. Britten. A supplement to the list was published in EMM, 86, 1950, pp. 121-3. (MD 9/01)

Duff (1993), p.5 records that G.C. Bartindale 'visited coastal west Somerset in August-September 1935 and again in May 1946. He sent one list to Taunton Museum (which I have not traced) and in January 1951 a different list to W.A. Wilson, followed on 22 March by a page of amendments'. (MD 10/03)

BARTINDALE, G.W.R.

Lived with his father G.C. Bartindale at 16 Lostock Avenue, Poynton, Cheshire and before that at 156 Cumberland Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire. In EMM, 86, 1950 he published 'Feronia angustata (Duft) in Lancashire and Cheshire' (p. 315).

G.W.R. Bartindale is recorded as D.Phil.

I have seen specimens collected by G.W.R. Bartindale in 1934 in the Doncaster Museum. (MD 9/01)

Duff (1993), p.5 records that G.W.R. Bartindale 'visited Somerset with his father... in 1935. According to a letter from G.C. Bartindale to W.A. Wilson dated 14 January 1951, held in the Wilson archives at Taunton County Museum, the son was responsible for all of their identifications.' (MD 10/03)

BARTLETT, Charles

Published 'Acanthocinus aedilis L. in N. Devon' and 'A note on Coleoptera in drift pine logs' in EMM, 54, 1918, pp. 137-8 and 57, 1921, p. 15 respectively. Bartlett gives his address as Morwenstow, Woodhill, Portishead, Somerset. In 1906 the Naturalist's Directory records him living at Westbury on Trym, Bristol. He also published notes on the Lepidoptera. (MD 9/01)

BARTLETT, H.F.D. (d. 1940)

Lived for many years on the Isle of St. Helena where he worked on the beetle fauna. He considered that the beetle population had declined since the publication of Woollaston's work (1877) largely owing to the disappearance before cultivation of much of the native forest.

FES 1907. There is a short obituary in Proc. RESL, 5, 1940-41, p.40. (MD 9/01)

BARTON, C.S.

Arrow, J.G., Rutelinae, Desmonycinae, Euchirinae, FBI, 1917, p. 222 records that he collected Rutelinae in Burma. (MD 9/01)

BARTON, Lewis F.

Published a number of notes on interesting captures of beetles in EMM including 'Coleoptera in Surrey and Hampshire'(43, 1907, p.253); 'Coleoptera at Newcastle, etc., in 1909' (46, 1910, pp.189-190); 'A new locality for Aulonium trisulcum Geoff.' (71, 1935, p.226) and three notes on 'Crioceris lilii Scop. in Chobham; Surrey'(76, 1940, p. 236; 77, 1941, pp.278; and 79, 1943, pp.18,19). This is presumably the E.S. Barton listed by Smith (1986) as giving 31 species of Criocerus lilii from Chobham illustrating its life history to the HDO in 1942. Barton is first recorded at The Retreat, Guildford Road, Woking, Surrey and later at Pepperstitch, Bagshot Road, Chobham, Surrey. (MD 9/01)

BARTON, Stephen (d. 17 November 1898)

Died at the age of 78. In 1852 Barton visited Australia where he resided for two or three years and made extensive collections of Coleoptera including many which were new to science. Some of these were described by his friend Henry Walter Bates. He also collected at the Cape and other places en route. He hoped at one time to join Bates in South America but when this fell through he settled down to business in Bristol where he is recorded in Ent. Annual in 1860 at Quay Head Street. His interests in Coleoptera continued and he is recorded to have built up very extensive collections of foreign and British specimens. For over thirty years he was President of the Entomological Section of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, and he long acted as Honorary Curator to the Entomological Department of the Bristol Museum, making various important contributions to the collections. His own collections were sold by Stevens on 27-28 March 1899.

FES 1865. There are obituaries in Proc. ESL, 1898, iiv (by I.R. Trimin) and in EMM, 35, 1899, p. 16 (by A.E. Hudd). (MD 9/01)

BASDEN, E.B.

There are beetles collected by Basden in the RSM. He worked at the Plant Infestation Laboratory, Slough. (MD 9/01)

BASTIN, A.H.

Made a collection to illustrate Economic Entomology in thirty one boxes which was purchased by Bolton Museum. Parts are now loaned out to schools. Another collection was purchased by Birmingham Museum for £30 on 17 April 1918 (Accessions Book no. 19) (MD 9/01)

BATE, Miss D.M.A.

Insects including Coleoptera collected in Cyprus were acquired by the HDO in several batches between 1901 and 1908 (Smith, 1986, p.102). (MD 9/01)

BATEMAN, H. William

Listed in the Ent. Annual, 1857 at 6 Islington Green, London and in 1860 at 80 Upper Street, Islington, London. His interests are recorded as British and foreign Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. Possibly the same Bateman from whose collections made at Melbourne, Australia, Westwood acquired Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, which passed to the HDO in 1857. (Smith, 1986, p.102). (MD 9/01)

BATES, Frederick (18 November 1829 - 6 October 1903)

Born in Leicester, a younger brother of Henry Walter Bates. He spent most of his life in the town, or in the county, until moving to London in 1896. He was a successful brewer becoming Vice-Chairman of his own company. Bates's interests included music, of which he is recorded to have had 'a thorough knowledge'; Latin; French, which he could read easily; and the works of Spencer, Huxley and Darwin. On philosophical subjects 'he possessed as complete a knowledge of, and insight into ... as any man living' (Donisthorpe, op. cit..) He died at his residence, 417 High Road, Chiswick.

Bates' interest in entomology appears to have begun with the Coleoptera. He published various notes in Zoo. from 1849, and in 1854 was able to prepare fot the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society 'A Catalogue of the Coleoptera of Leicestershire' which was read on his behalf by H.E.Quilter. (This was not published. It is noted by Bates' son Ernest in a list of his father's works sent to Horace Donisthorpe when the latter was preparing his obituary for the ERJV, 15, 1903, pp.347-9.) Some time after this he became interested in the Heteromera, doing much original work, and describing many new genera and species.

Most of his publications concerned the Heteromera, but he did publish 'Descriptions of new genera and species of Tenebrionidae from Australia, New Caledonia, and Norfolk Island' and 'Descriptions of new genera and species of Tenebrionidae from the Island of Madagascar in Trans. ESL, 3, 1873, pp. 347-380 and 4, 1879, pp. 277-307. A third and earlier paper on this group also appeared in the same periodical in 1872. Bates' other publication on the Coleoptera was a list of the species found in Bradgate Park which appeared in Trans. Leics. Lit. Phil. Soc., 4, 1896, pp. 170-176.

Bates' Heteromera collection was purchased by the NHM in two batches in 1881 and 1897 and consisted of 22390 specimens representing 7200 species. It incorporated, according to a note by Bates: 'Laferte's collection, comprising second specimens from Dejean's collection. R. Bakewell's collection, including that of Lacordaire (The remaining portion after the British Museum had made a selection). G.R. Waterhouse's collection. First selection of Major Parry's collection. Desbrochers des Loges' collection of Asida' A further collection of 22 Rutelidae entered the Museum's collections in 1859 by exchange. The NHM also has some manuscript material. This includes a notebook titled A Census of Mr Fred Bates Collection of Heteromera with notes, October 1880; an Index to Bates's collection with localities (formerly the property of Horace Donisthorpe; a Catalogue of the duplicate Heteromera of the collection Dejean purchased of the Marquis F. de Breme by the Marquis de Laferte-Senectere 1841 Now in the possession of F. Bates Leicester 1861; and a List of Eriodius and Tentyria. There is a black bound manuscript book titled 'Geodephaga' in the RESL library which apparently belonged to Bates and lists his collection of world ground beetles. Notes against some of the species indicate that he owned some of his brother's collection of Amazonian specimens.

Apart from the obituary already noted there are others in EMM, 39, 1903, pp. 286-7 and Trans. ESL, LXXIV-LXXV, 1903. (MD 9/01)

Sharon Reid of the Central Science Laboratory (DEFRA) at York tells me that there is a collection of beetles there all of which are labelled F. Bates and some of which are dated from the 1890s. According to Bates's obituary in EMM he formed an extensive British Coleoptera collection towards the end of his life and this must be this collection about which Charles Mackechnie Jarvis wrote to me: "The F.Bates collection passed to the late Prof. G.W. Nicholson (a medic) and thence to B.S. Williams of Harpenden, my wife's father. The collection then in poor condition, was housed in single sided shallow varnished store boxes in three vertical rows in two glass fronted book cases with heavy sliding doors of the thickness of sash windows (and very like them). I saw this collection at Harpenden many years ago and know that Williams incorporated in his own cabinet collection, the species he needed. The remainder was largely used to augment a collection of Coleoptera at the Plant Pathology Laboratory at Harpenden. B.S Williams was on the staff and built up a good reference collection there.

The B.S.W. private collection was presented to the Liverpool Museum by his widow... The Bates store boxes were dispersed but the two 'bookcases' of heavy construction are in use in my office...

In the Manuscript list the Leicestershire species are distinquished by a capital L and where captured by or known to Bates the localities and details of occurrence are entered in fine writing on the interleaving.

Whether Nicholson had the Bates collection from Donisthorpe I do not know. I see he mentions it as his in the F. Bates obit. But Horn and Kahle give Nicholson only."

I am grateful to Tony Irwin who has pointed out that there are a large number of insects which bear the initials F.B., presumably Frederick Bates, in E.A. Butler's foreign collection of Coleoptera and Hemiptera at Norwich Museum. (MD 10/03)

BATES, Henry Walter (8 February 1825 - 16 February 1892)

Born in Leicester, the elder brother of Frederick Bates. Educated at Billesden school until the age of thirteen when he was apprenticed to a hosiery manufacturer. Worked from 7am to 8pm but managed, nevertheless, to attend classes at the Mechanics Institute where he rapidly became a good Greek, Latin and French scholar, as well as becoming proficient at Drawing and Composition. Translated Homer before going to work in the morning, and read prodigiously. His brother Frederick remembered him saying that 'no one ought to make any pretensions to be considered a reader who had not twice gone through Gibbon's Decline and Fall. He considered travelling to Australia with Stephen Barton but the project fell through. Met A.R. Wallace in 1844-45 when Wallace was a tutor in Leicester, and in April 1848 set sail with him for South America, on the natural history expedition which was to lead to his publishing The Naturalist on the River Amazons (1863), the book for which he is beat known. Returned to England in 1859 and settled in Leicestershire where he married. In 1861 he took up the post of Assistant Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society which he held until his death, aged 68.

Bates's interest in natural history was first aroused by the friends he made at the Mechanics Institute, particularly John Plant and James Harley. His brother Frederick later recalled 'I have no recollection of his specially pursuing any other branch than entomology ... Like most collectors he commenced with the Lepidoptera, but soon abandoned these for the Coleoptera... Never shall I forget his radiant joy ... when he once came bounding in, shouting in exultation, with his first capture of a 'Tiger' beetle, made in Anstey Lane... Our earliest collections, I well remember, were stored away in such places as table and wash-hand stand drawers. Our collecting nets too were very primitive - a loop of wire soldered into a tin socket to hold a stick... In those days the best collecting grounds were the parts of Charnwood Forest owned by the old Earl of Stamford ... Good Friday was always chosen as the first grand opening day of the season ... My brother used habitually to write a descriptive account of all these expeditions; he would also sketch and write out descriptions of all the principal insects captured'.

By the time his apprenticeship was nearing its end Bates had 'formed a very extensive collection of British beetles and was in correspondence with all the chief coleopterists of the time. The study of Coleoptera was a very different thing in those days to what it is at the present time. Then there was nothing much to enable the worker to determine his species but Stephens's Manual, and all who have puzzled over that book will know the difficulties. ... Among the friends made about this time was Mr E. Brown, of Burton-on-Trent, who interested himself in procuring my brother a situation as a clerk in Messers Allsopp's offices at Burton-on-Trent. He remained there until he had made arrangements to start on his memorable expedition...' (Proc. R. Geog. Soc. and Monthly Record of Geography, April 1892, pp.2-3).

Bates' first article entitled 'Notes on Coleopterous Insects frequenting Damp Places' was published in Zoo., 1, 1843, pp.114-115. This was followed by more than one hundred articles covering entomology, mostly concerned with the Geodephaga and Longicornia, and other articles in the Athenaeum. Many of the more important pieces have been reprinted in E. Gorton Linsley (ed.), The Principal Contributions of Henry Walter Bates to a Knowledge of the Butterflies and Longicorn Beetles of the Amazon Valley, New York 1978.

F. Hope purchased Coleoptera including Cicindelidae (Megacephala) from the Amazon from Bates'collections for the HDO in June 1858 and 1861. The NHM acquired extensive portions of Bates' collections from 1851 to 1870. This Museum also possesses two notebooks relating to insects of the Amazon Valley with many fine original water-colour drawings which cover the dates 1851-59. There is a pocket book used by Bates on his travels from 1848-1859 in the British Library, and correspondence between Bates and Henry Doubleday of 1864 is in the Passmore Edwardes Museum, Stratford, London. Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me that specimens collected by him are in the Rippon Collection, NMW.

Gilbert (1977) lists seventeen obituaries and other notices, the most important of which are probably: that already mentioned above; D. Sharp in Ent., 25, 1892, pp. 77-80; R. MacLachlan in EMM, 28, 1892, pp. 83-85; and F.D. Godman in Proc. ESL, 1892, pp. i-iv. (MD 9/01)

BATESON, William (8 August 1861 - 8 February 1926)

Bateson is best known, however, for his advocacy of Mendel's theory of heredity, a theory he had almost discovered for himself before Mendel's long forgotten Versuche uber Pflanzen-Hybriden was rediscovered in 1900.

Bateson was born at Whitby, the elder son of William Henry Bateson, Master of St. John's College, Cambridge. His younger sister was Mary Bateson, the historian. He was educated at Rugby School and St. John's College, Cambridge. Under the influence of Francis Maitland Balfour he took up the study of embryology which led him to visit the United States. There he met W.K. Brooks and became interested in evolution. It was this interest which led to his visiting Western Central Asia in 1886 and Egypt in 1887. After his return to Cambridge he developed his research and theories in Materials for the Study of Variation, published in 1894. Two works on Mendel's theories, were published in 1902 and 1909; and Problems of Genetics, in 1913. It was Bateson who first 'invented' the term genetics.

In 1910, after receiving many academic accolades, Bateson moved to Merton in Surrey where he was appointed Director of the newly opened John Innes Institute. Under his enterprising leadership this quickly established itself as an important centre for biological research, concentrating not just on the theoretical aspects but also on the practical, Many of Bateson's own speeches, etc. at this time were collected together under the title Essays and Addresses (1928). Besides his professional interests Bateson was also interested in art, particularly Prints and Drawings, and in 1922 he was elected a Trustee of the British Museum.

The EMM stated in its obituary 'although entomology was perhaps not Bateson's principal interest, he possessed a sound and extensive knowledge of our science in which he drew largely in his published works'. His writings on entomology included 'On the colour-variations of a beetle of the family Chrysomelidae, statistically examined' in Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1895, pp. 850-860.

Aquatic Coleoptera and Hemiptera collected by Bateson in west Central Asia were acquired by Cambridge University Zoological Collections on 17 October 1922 (Insect Department Register). A collection of his letters notebooks and papers is in the John Innes Institute Library at Norwich (see A. Cock, 'The William Bateaon Papers' in Mendel Newsletter, 14, 1977 1-4), and some correspondence with Henry Druce is in the RESL Library.

FRES from 1894; Council 1898; Vice President 1925. Gilbert (1977) lists seven obituaries and there is an entry in DNB (by R.C. Punnett who knew Bateson) which lists further references. (MD 9/01)

BATH, W. HARCOURT (1882 - 1932)

Primarily a Lepidopterist although he did publish articles on Orthoptera and Odonata, and a note on 'The Stag Beetle in the Midlands' (where he lived) in Ent., 20, 1887, pp. 44-45. Surprisingly, in view of the number and extent of his publications, there appears to be no obituary. His interest in entomology was pursued not only in Europe but also in India where he is recorded by G.J. Arrow to have collected Euchirinae in Darjeeling (FBI, Rutelinae, 1917, 370). Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me that specimens from Darjeeling are in the Rippon Collection at NMW. (MD 9/01)

BAYFORD, Edwin Goldthorp (1865 - 10 December 1958)

Lived throughout his life in Yorkshire and took a keen interest in local history and literature in the county, of which he possessed a fine library. From 1920 he was a member of the Yorkshire Dialect Society.

Bayford started by collecting Lepidoptera, but B.P. Uvarov notes that 'the chance finding of a longhorn beetle in 1883 turned his attention to the Coleoptera' (Proc. RESL., 24(C), 1959-60, p.52). Bayford's first entomological article, on the Hessian fly, was published in the Ent., 1887, and his first Coleoptera note, on Monochammus sartor F. in EMM, 29, 1893, p. 43. Subsequently he published many notes in the Naturalist (Hull) and in the EMM until 1926. Latterly these included accounts of the meetings of the Entomological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists Union, of which he was Secretary and later Chairman, and at the meetings of which he frequently showed beetles. He was also a member of the South West Yorkshire Entomological Society.

Bayford's friends included Dr Corbett. He owned the Rev. Tylden's copy of Stevens's Manual (EMM, 49, 1913, p. 111).

Bayford's collection passed to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Accession number Z.199.56) where it has been incorporated with the general collection. The collection and what it contained is mentioned by Bayford himself in Quarterly Transactions of the Barnsley Naturalist's Society, V, 1885-6, pp. 1-3.

A collection of correspondence including 466 letters mostly to him from amongst others G.T. Porritt, W.D. Roebuck., T. Sheppard and M.L. Thompson, as well as members of his family is in the NHM together with a typed index. Some of the letters relate to the Yorkshire Coleoptera survey and others to the compilation of the insect section of the Victoria County History. (MD 9/01)

BAYNES, Edward Stuart Augustus (d. May 1972 aged 82)

Published 'Abnormal growth of a mandible of Lucanus cervus L.' in EMM, 82, 1946, p. 196. Lived at Monkshatch Cottage, Compton, Guildford. (MD 9/01)

BAXTER, John

Duff (1993) records "little is known about John Baxter, an assistant in the Chemistry Laboratories at Downside School during the 1950s who collected exclusively, if not particularly assiduously, in Somerset (J.H. Kemp, pers. comm.). It appears that Baxter inherited J.V. Blachford's collection and added his specimens to it, and it was Baxter who gave Blachford's collection to the University of Bath."

BEAMONT, Alfred (1832 - 21 February 1905)

Born at Honley, near Huddersfield. Educated at Storthes Hall under the tutorship of Peter Inchbald, a well-known entomologist of the time. It was here that Beaumont met J.W. Dunning and T.H. Allis, who were fellow pupils, and all three, enthused by Inchbald, retained an interest in entomology throughout their lives. It may have been at Storthes that Beaumont first met H.T.Stainton, the Lepidopterist, who also became a close acquaintance. On leaving school Beaumont joined his father's large woollen manufacturing business of which he later became the head. He was twice married, the church at Wilshaw, near Huddersfield, being erected to the memory of his first wife.

Beaumont's early enthusiasm was for Lepidoptera and ornithology, and he built up fine collections of both. These were disposed of (except some rarities) when he moved from Honley, eventually to settle at Lewisham, near the Staintons, in 1884, and later at Gosfield in Essex. His collecting activities had by now switched to other orders including Coleoptera. His first article on beetles 'Captures of Coleoptera near Pitlochry, Perthshire' appeared in EMM, 20, 1883, pp. 142-3) and was followed by various others, the last, on several beetles he had reared from timber, appearing in Ent., 1904.

George Porritt, writing Beaumont's obituary in EMM, l02, 1905, p.95, noted that 'he did splendid work among the Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Neuroptera and Diptera, repeatedly finding species new to the British list, and in some cases new to science. Perhaps his favourite locality of late years was the lovely district of Oxshott in Surrey... He seemed never tired of collecting and setting his captures, and up to the time of his death, his setting of the most minute insects was a marvel of neatness. But the naming of his captures was always irksome to him; he usually sent his doubtful species to specialists, often to their advantage.'

Beaumont's collection, on which he was working at the moment of death, was sold by Stevens on 5 February 1906 (Chalmers Hunt (1976)). It seems likely that this is the collection which A. Fergusson records in EMM, 58, 1922, p. 279, as belonging to T.G. Bishop, the Glaswegian entomologist, and passing after his death in 1922 to his grandson, also T.G. Bishop.

Apart from the obituary already mentioned there are others in Ent., 38, 1905, p.120 and in Ent. Jb., 15, 1906, p.192. (MD 10/01)

BEAMONT, W. Worby

Published 'Mice and Beetles' in Nature, 20, 1879, p.29. (MD 10/01)

BEARE, Sir Thomas Hudson (20 June 1859 - 10 June 1840)

Born in Adelaide, Australia, a younger son of Thomas Hudson Beare of Netley, Adelaide. Educated at Prince Alfred College and the University of Adelaide. He came to Britain some time before 1887 when, at the young age of 29, he became Professor of Engineering in Heriot Watt College, Edinburgh. Two years later he moved to London as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at University College, and in 1901 he returned to Edinburgh as Regius Professor of Engineering in the University of Edinburgh. In 1914 he became Dean of the Faculty of Science. He was knighted in 1926, and in 1936 he received the honorary degree of LL.D.

Besides his professional and entomological activities, Beare engaged in many other pursuits too. He was a Captain in the First Volunteer Division of the Royal Engineers; Chairman of the North Edinburgh Unionist Association, an original member of the Miners Welfare Committee; and a member of the Sanitary Protection Association.

Beare's first publication on the Coleoptera 'Chrysomela goettingensis at Box Hill' appeared in EMM, 29, 1893, p. 193, and was followed by many others. He was particularly adept at writing regional notes, and later compiled lists of additions to the British fauna. Beare at one time lived on the edge of Richmond Park where he did a considerable amount of collecting (see, for example, ERJV, X, 1898, pp. 146-150) and it was while living there that he first met Horace Donisthorpe. Donisthorpe later recorded that their friendship lasted almost fifty years during which time 'we have spent many happy days together collecting beetles all over England and Scotland (EMM, 76, 1940, p. 187 and ERJV, 52, 1940, pp.107-8). These trips led to several joint publications including their well known Catalogue of British Coleoptera, published by Janson in 1904. This was subsequently revised by Beare alone as A Catalogue of the Recorded Coleoptera of the British Isles (1930). It was while staying with Beare at Nethy Bridge in 1908 that Donisthorpe took Anaspis hudsoni, which he named after him (ERJV, 21, 1909, p.60. Now relegated as a junior synonym of A. rufilabris (Gyll.)).

Beare added several species to the British list including Thanasimus rufipes Brahm, Aulonium trisulcum Geoff., Olophrum assimile Payk., Aulonium ruficorne Oliv., and Corticeus fraxinii Kug.

Beare's collection passed to Edinburgh University and is now on loan to the RSM. It consists of one cabinet of 44 drawers, and is accompanied by a brown paper parcel, numbered 5, which contains a volume entitled Records of Captures of British Coleoptera by T. Hudson Beare (arranged alphabetically with an index) with, inside it, a smaller volume titled Additional species sent to the Hudson Beare Collection (apparently in 1944). The collection has been worked over by D.Kevan and A.R.Waterston and re-attributed insects have been left in their original locations. Gaps indicate that some species are missing. Other specimens collected by Beare are in E.C.Bedwell's collection at the Castle Museum, Norwich. Donisthorpe records that Beare kept only his own captures.

FRES 1896, Vice-President 1910 and 1932, and served for four periods on the Council. The only obituary seems to be that by Donisthorpe quoted. (MD 10/01)

Arthur Ewing and John Owen inform me that the Central Library, George Square, Edinburgh has a copy of Fowler copiously annotated by Beare which was formerly in the Zoology Department at Edinburgh University, but was removed because it was considered 'too valuable' to remain there. (MD 10/03)

BECK, R.

Listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1904-5, p. 5, as interested in Coleoptera. Lived at this time at Sandihayes, Bitterne Road, Southampton. (MD 10/01)

Ernest Lewis informs me that Beck’s collection was given to Sidcot School, Wincombe, Avon, a Quaker school. (MD10/03)

BECKWITH

Stephens (1828-1831) 1, p. 38, records that a specimen from Beckwith's collection was in that of J. Vigors. (MD 10/01)

BEDFORD, E.J.

This name appears on a specimen of Cetonia aurata L. in the general collection of Doncaster Museum. It was taken at Lewes in 1936. (MD 10/01)

BEDWELL, Ernest Charles (11 October 1875 - 4 April 1945

Born at Carlton Colville and educated at North Walsham Grammar School. He was for many years on the surveying staff of Messers Farebrother, Ellis and Co. where he was always known as 'Mr Bugs', and from which he retired in 1939.

Bedwell began by collecting Lepidoptera, but A.M.Massee notes that 'at the age of 20 he changed to the Coleoptera, which he collected assiduously until his death. His magnificent collection of beautifully set beetles is very complete, and such difficult genera as Atheta, Colon, Epuraea, and Meligethes often so poorly represented in collections - are very complete. Bedwell"s favourite group was the Sternoxia, 'of which the 'clicks' make a very impressive series.' He also collected the Hemiptera-Heteroptera and succeeded in taking all but thirty of the 500 recorded British species. A species of Microphysidae, Myrmedobia bedwelli, which he discovered at the Lizard in 1932 was named after him by W.E. China.

Bedwell's first publication on the Coleoptera 'Cryptocephalus exiguus: an addition to the Suffolk fauna' appeared in EMM, 35, 1899, pp. 45-46, and was followed by many others. An important early publication was his list of the Coleoptera of Oulton Broad and district (ERJV, 11, 1899, pp. 298-300, 335-338). The insects were taken in a fifteen month period ending in April 1899. In naming them he was much helped by Claude Morley.

Bedwell bequeathed his collection to the Castle Museum, Norwich where it is maintained separately (number 115.1945). The Accession register states that the collection includes 'c.26,000 specimens with full data', of which '16,558 have been remounted recently and arranged in cabinets'. The rest are in store boxes. Included with the collection are Newberry and Sharp's Exchange List, 1915, marked up with complete and in-complete sets and single specimens; three volumes listing localities visited between 1898 and 1942; six volumes listing captures between 1896 and 1932 (these include the names of companions eg. Tottenham, Sharp, Nicholson, etc. and several photographs); and an envelope containing A catalogue of the Tachyporinae in E.C. Bedwell's Collection by Ismay, and correspondence about the collection going to Norwich. A note indicates that Bedwell arranged the collection according to A. Winkler, Catalogus Coleop., Vienna 1924-5.

Other specimens collected by Bedwell are in the Waterhouse Collection in the RSM, and in the HDO. Letters from Bedwell concerning B.S.Williams' collection, which he was instrumental in obtaining for the Liverpool Museum, are in that Museum. Two are interesting: Bedwell to Dr Allan, 3 December 1941 'I took on the disposal of the libraries of E.A.Buckley, Easbury[?], and Stott as they were personal friends and I still have some in hand... they are in store as I been bombed out of my house'. And Bedwell to Harry Britten, 12 September 1941: 'Please excuse this short letter but my hands are so bad this morning I can hardly hold the pen...'

FRES 1899, Vice-President 1922, Council 1917-19, 1922-24 and 1929-31, and in 1940 was made a Special Life Fellow in recognition of his services to the Society as Surveyor. Apart from the account by Massee already mentioned there are others in EMM, 81, 1945, p. 143 (by P. Harwood); Proc RESL 1O(C), 1945-6, p. 53 (by G.Carpenter), and Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc., 5, 1945, pp. xcvii-xcviii. There are also many references to him in Morley (1899). (MD 10/01)

BEESON, C.F.C.

Attached to the Forestry Research Institute at Dehra Dun, India. Arrow, G.J., FBI, Rutelinae, 1917, mention beetles collected by him, and there are specimens in the Pusa Institute, Delhi which bear his name and the date 1919. (MD 10/01)

BEEVOR, W.A.

Published the capture of six specimens of Aderus brevicornis Perris at Heathfield, Sussex in EMM, 34, 1898, p.279. These are now lost and A.A. Allen wrote a note to the same periodical (96, 1960, p.48) asking for any information about them. Was Beevor related perhaps to A. Beevor of Horningham who is listed as a subscriber to H. Denny, Pselaphidarum et Scydmaenidarum Britanniae, 1825? (MD 10/01)

BELL, J.W.B.

A Reverend at Pyrton. Smith (1986) notices two species of Buprestidae caught by him in Champion Bay, Australia in 1889, in the HDO, together with a collection of Lepidoptera. He was related to G.V. Bell who collected insects of various orders in Malaya which are also now in the HDO (presented by Mrs Bell in 1920). (MD 10/01)

BENNETT, Major

Collected Rutelinae in Darjeeling, India. (Arrow,G.J., FBI, Rutelinae, 1917, references around p. 230) (MD 10/01)

BENNETT, William Henry (1862 - 1931)

Born and died in Hastings. His father was Henry Edward Bennett, a pork butcher in George Street, and when he died William Henry took over the business at an early age. He remained in this profession throughout his working life. Horace Donisthorpe, writing Bennett's obituary in ERJV, 43, 1931, p.92 noted: 'he was a very good all round naturalist, not only as an entomologist - specialising in Coleoptera - but also as an ornithologist, etc.. He had a wonderful genius for field work, and we well remember collecting with him in the early 90s and also Later�c Every entomologist who visited Hastings always went to see Bennett to secure his help and advice'.

Bennett's first article added Lebia turcica P. to the British list (EMM, 20, 1884, p.8) and subsequently he went on to add Ochthebius lejolisi Muls. (found in rock pools at Ilfracombe) and Anthonomus rufus Schon.. Ilyobates bennetti, found with ants in Bexhill High Wood in 1907, was named after him by Donisthorpe in 1914. Bennett also compiled A New Exchange List of British Coleoptera (nd) as is confirmed in a note by N.F. McMillan pasted into the copy in the RESL library which records that J.R. le B. Tomlin had given him the following information on 22 April 1942: 'Also a Coleoptera List published here [Hastings] many years ago by Bennett, a local butcher, who was very keen and who I often went out with. Now that he is dead and his list is scarce I am being asked about it and have recently had several requests for a copy. When he died I overhauled his books etc. at his widow's request and there were a lot of these lists left which we mostly destroyed' (I am grateful to Eric Gowing-Scopes for this information).

Bennett's collection, housed in a twenty drawer cabinet, was given to Hastings Museum by the Hastings and St. Leonards Museum Association which purchased it from Bennett, in 1913. There are also beetles collected by him in the R. Wilding collection in Liverpool Museum. FRES 1897-1909. (MD 10/01)

BENNIS, E.H.

Published 'Carabus clathratus in Co. Clare' in Irish Naturalist, 28, 1919, p.91.(MD 10/01)

BENSON, Roy Farmes

Lepidopterist who also worked on the Coleoptera. Lived at Gathurst, near Wigan, Lancashire.

FRES 1949-1962. (MD 3/03)

BENSON, William Henry (1803 - 1870)

Published three articles on beetles: 'Description of four new species of the Coleopterous family of the Paussidae' in Calcutta Journal of Natural History, 6, 1846, pp. 459-470; 'Notes on the capture of Paussi at the Cape of Good Hope', Trans. ESL, 5, 1847, pp.30-32; and 'On the possible identity of Paussus lineatus and Pirryanus', ANMT, (3)7, 1861, pp. 459-463. W.W. Fowler in his Introductory volume to the FBI series mentions that Benson collected Paussidae at Cawnpur and elsewhere in the United Provinces. (MD 10/01)

BENTLEY, Joseph

Bentley is mentioned many times in Stephens (1828-1831) from 1828, as a collector of British Coleoptera, sometimes in association withSamouelle and Chant. He was a member of the London Entomological Society between 1780-2, and may be the Mr Bentley of Britannia Street, City, who is listed as a subscriber to Denny's work on the Pselaphidae (1825). He may have been related to William Bentley (1789-1859), the Lepidopterist, who was also a friend of Chant. (MD 10/01)

BERRIDGE, E.W.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, p. 4 as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His address is given as Buttermarket, Ipswich. (MD 10/01)

BEST, Dudley (1843 - 10 June 1928)

Born in England but emigrated with his parents to Victoria, Australia in 1850. Became a well-known Coleopterist in Australia and was one of the founder members of the Field Naturalists Club of Victoria. Morphnos bestii Sl. (1902), Notonomus besti Sl. (1902) and Macrones besti Blkb. (1907) were all named after him. He published some eight or so articles of which 'Longicorn Beetles of Victoria' which appeared in five parts in the Southern Science Record between 1880 and 1882, was perhaps the most important.

Best's collection is in the National Museum at Melbourne. There is an obituary in the Victorian Naturalist, Melbourne, XLV, 1928, pp. 104-107, by F.G.A. Barnard, which includes a portrait. (MD 10/01)

BETTON, C.S.

This name, accompanied by the figures '1909-79', appears on labels in the Coleoptera collection at Exeter Museum. (MD 10/01)

BEVAN, E.

An E. Bevan is listed as a subscriber to Denny, H. (1825). Perhaps this is Edward Bevan, (July 1769-31 January 1859), the author of several works on the Honey Bee. A short obituary notice in EWI, 7, 1859, p.160 notices a record of his death in the Hereford Times, 1859, and records that he had been 'blind for several years'. FES 1833-1835. (MD 10/01)

BEWLEY, F.

A Reverend who lived at Ballymoney, Co. Antrim in 1858. He published two letters in EWI, 86, 22 May 1858, p.61, and 89, 12 June 1858, p. 76 in which he informed subscribers that he had various duplicate Coleoptera to give away or exchange 'I shall be happy to share my captures with any one who sends a box and postage. I wish this offer to be considered quite unconditional yet I should much wish any person who can spare any species of Dytiscidae, any species of Cicindelidae, and Lucanus cervus (male) would be so kind us to send them to me; the box shall be safely returned (not empty)'. (MD 10/01)

BIGGS, H.E.J.

A Reverend. He appears to have travelled extensively. In 1945 he published 'Two new species of Coleoptera from Persia' (EMM, 81, pp.110-111) in which he recorded that he had collected beetles in that country in his spare time for ten years. In 1947 he published in the same journal 'Rhagonycha montana described from Morocco' (83, p.9) and in 1949 he offered Egyptian, Persian, Chinese and Californian Hymenoptera in exchange for Carabids and Tabanid flies (85, p.XI). He is listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1948 at The Rectory, Mellis, Near Eye, Suffolk, and described his interests as 'Mollusca, Coleoptera. Collect same esp. near East (Persia and Egypt). Exchange shells and beetles. Sell a few shells of deserts available'.

Biggs also published on the Diptera of which his most important article was probably a list of the Diptera of East Anglia in EMM, 1951. (MD 10/01)

BILLUPS, Thomas Richard (1841 - 10 December 1919)

Published his first article on 'Carabus auratus L. in the Borough Market, London' in EMM, 16, 1879, p. 51, but the majority of the 100 or so entomological notes which followed this were on Hymenoptera, Orthoptera, Diptera and Hemiptera. He lived at 20 Swiss Villas, Copleston Road, Peckham. There are obituaries in Ent., 53, 1920, p.72 and EMM, 56, 1920, p.66. FESL 1879-1902, Council 1884-1886. (MD 10/01)

BINGHAM, Charles Thomas (16 April 1848 - 18 October 1908)

Well known Hymenopterist who was an editor of the FBI series. He was attached to the Bengal Staff Corps as a Lt. Colonel, and held the post of Conservator of Forests in Burma until 1894. While in Burma he did collect some Coleoptera as W.W. Fowler, FBI Introduction records. After leaving Burma he settled in Kensington, London and was a 'familiar figure in the Insect Room of the Natural History Museum' where he worked primarily on Hymenoptera and Lepidoptera.

FZS 1895-1908; FRES 1895-1908, Council 1903-1906. Gilbert (1977) lists various obituaries. A note in EMM, 45, 1909, p.36, by W.F. Kirby points out that the EMM's obituary contained an error: Bingham was not born in Ireland, but in India of an old Irish family, and educated in Ireland. (MD 10/01)

BINGHAM, S.

Published a single note in EWI, 6, p. 5: 'Biphyllus lunatus - This has reappeared in its old haunt, and I should have much pleasure in sending living specimens to any entomologist forwarding me a stamped envelope. I do not collect Coleoptera, therefore require no return.' He gives his address as Newnham, Gloucestershire. (MD 10/01)

BIRCH, F.

Some time Honorary Secretary of the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society and wrote reports to the journals of the Society"s meetings. Some of these record that he showed Coleoptera. He is listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1904-5 at 23 Orford Street, Wavertree, Liverpool, and gives his interests as Coleoptera and Hymenoptera. Presumably this is the Fred Birch whose name appears on specimens in Doncaster Museum"s general collection. (MD 10/01)

BIRCHALL, Edwin (1819 - 2 May 1884)

Best known as a Lepidopterist. His father was an important businessman in Leeds and he was educated there and at the Friends School, York, where his fellow students included Benjamin and Nicholas Cooke, and several others who were to become well-known naturalists. He became a partner in his father's firm and then joined Pickfords as their agent firstly in Dublin, and later in Liverpool. Subsequently he started in business on his own account in Bradford , but soon gave up and moved via Leeds to the Isle of Man where he settled. The writer of his obituary in EMM, 21, 1884, p. 3 states that he was 'a born naturalist, an enthusiastic collector, and an extremely genial and buoyant disposition; at the same time he was a strong partisan, and enjoyed a controversy in print, especially on theological matters.'

Birchall's entry in the Ent. Ann. for 1857 and 1860 records his interests as 'British insects of all orders', which certainly included beetles. Johnson & Halbert (1902) make various references to his captures, and in 1876 he published a note on 'Coleoptera in the Isle of Man' in EMM, 13, p. 65.

Birchall sustained injuries in a fall from a cliff while pursuing his entomological activities from which he never properly recovered, and he died at Douglas, Isle of Man, after being nursed by his daughter for several years. There are obituaries in EMM, 21, 1884, p. 27; Proc. ESL, XLIII, (by J.W. Dunning); Leopoldina, 20, 1884, p. 115; Zool. Anz., 7, 1884, p. 352; and Psyche (Cambridge, Mass., USA) 4, 1884, p. 191. His British collections of Lepidoptera were sold by Stevens on 19 July, 1881. (MD 10/01)

BIRD, C.S.

A Reverend. Recorded to have been one of the first members of the Entomological Society to give insects. Published three articles on insects, of which one 'Capture of insects at Burchfield', Ent. Mag., 2, 1835, pp. 39-43, included a list of 26 beetles 'not quite common' from the neighbourhood. At the time he states that he had lived at Burghfield Hill House, Burghfield, nr. Reading 'for about ten years' and that he had 'employed my leisure hours in making an entomological collection.' FES 1833-41. FLS. (MD 10/01)

BIRD, H.

A Doctor of Medicine. Read a paper on beetles of the Bath District to the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club on 14 March 1884 at which time he also showed a collection: 'as, however, the correctness of some of the names is doubtful, and there are many specimens not named at all', it was not thought by the compilers of the Club's Transactions to be worthy of publication. (V, 1884, p.227) Bird was an Honorary member of the Club. (MD 10/01)

BIRD, Maurice Charles Hilton (28 March 1857 - 18 October 1924)

Eldest son of Captain H.H. Bird of Little Waltham Hall, Essex and his wife Eliza Sophia (nee Master). Although Bird inherited his father"s large estate in Essex, he preferred to live in Norfolk where his father had bought Burnely Hall, West Somerton and hired Kelling Hall. Bird was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and in 1887 married Kate Bonner, daughter of Henry Calthorpe Bonner of the Manor House, East Rudham. They had two sons and two daughters. After a time as a master at Weymouth College, Bird took holy orders, and in 1887 accepted the curacy of Brunstead, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Bird took a very active role in rural affairs and his obituary in Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Soc., XI, 1924, p.609 notes that he had many of the characteristics of Gilbert White. His work on beetles included the publication of a note on Barynotus moerens Fab. in EMM, 27, 1891, pp. 222-23 (with the help of W.W. Fowler) and the preparation of a list of Norfolk records. Martin Collier informs me however, that this list which is contained in a notebook in the Castle Museum, Norwich, is identical with records quoted by James Edwards when compiling his Norfolk list (Trans. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists Soc., 1895) as belonging to the Rev. Theodore Wood.

Bird was a member of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalist's Society from 1882 and the British Ornithologists Union from 1892 (President 1908-09). (MD 10/01)

BIRKENHEAD, A.R.

A Reverend. Mentioned by Frank Bouskell in ERJV, 15, 1903, p. 288 as collecting Coleoptera with him 'in a wood in the Market Bosworth district of Leicestershire.' (MD 10/01)

BISHOP, Thomas George (11 August 1846 - 26 August 1922)

Born at Carlisle but moved while still a boy to Glasgow where except for a short period when he lived at Lewisham, near London, he resided for the rest of his life. A. Fergusson records in EMM, 58, 1922, p. 279 that a journal existed at that time kept by Bishop when aged 14 which gave 'evidence that even at that early age his attention was turned towards the Coleoptera, of which in later years he became an enthusiastic collector and student'. In fact, he seems to have been collecting at even earlier age for E.C.Rye notes in the Ent. Ann., 1864, p. 32 a specimen of Carabus auratus taken on the Clyde by Bishop in 1857.

It was while in his teens that Bishop became acquainted with David Sharp who lived in Edinburgh at that time, and with whom he remained on close terms until their respective deaths less than twenty four hours apart. Certainly Bishop and Sharp were collecting together in 1864, for Rye records in Ent. Ann., 1865, pp. 41-42: 'Messers Bishop and Sharp have visited Rannoch with results that justify our expectations of very numerous additions to our list when the north is thoroughly worked, especially in new species'. As a result of this particular trip they added four new species to the British list including Agathidium rhinocerus, which Sharp described as new to science. Another new species described by Sharp, Gabrius bishopi, was presumably named after him.

Fergusson records that 'During this period Mr Bishop also collected Coleoptera in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and the writer can well remember the pleasure with which he related his early collecting experiences in such well known Glasgow localities as Tollcross sand pits, Possil Marsh and Cadder Wilderness. A good deal of his Glasgow collecting was done with the Rev. J.E.Somerville ... For many years after 1870 the increasing claims of business curtailed Mr Bishop's opportunities for collecting, but, although debarred from active participation in the pursuit of Coleoptera, his interest in the group still remained keen, and he acquired at various times the British Collections of the late Samuel Stevens, Alfred Beaumont, and George Guyon, as well as the foreign collection of Dr Heath'.

Bishop published only five short notes of which three appeared in the EWI, 1862-3. He was a member and for some time Secretary of the Glasgow Naturalists Society, and became a member of the Glasgow Society at the meetings of which he showed beetles. His extensive collections were left to his grandson T.G.Bishop, and his exotic collection is now in Glasgow University. There are also beetles collected by him in Manchester Museum's general collection. The best obituary is that by Fergusson quoted above. (MD 10/01)

BISHOPP, Edward F.

Primarily a Lepidopterist but he did publish 'The Death Watch' in Ent., 1884, pp.237-38. (MD 10/01)

BISSILL, W.K.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, p. 4 as interested in British Coleoptera. No address is given. This may be the same Bissill who published 'A fortnight at Hornsea, Yorks.' in Zoo., 17, 1859, pp. 6697-98. (MD 10/01)

BLACHFORD, J.V.

Duff (1993), pp. 4,7 records that Blachford (awarded the C.B.E) collected extensively in Somerset from 1919 to 1933, but published very little. His collection consisting of several thousand Somerset specimens as well as others from Cornwall, Devon, London, Sussex and various Welsh counties all dating from the 1920s and 30s, is in the University of Bath presented by John Baxter, whose specimens are also included in it. It has been partly catalogued by Duff. (MD 10/03)

The Blachford-Baxter collection has since been gifted from Bath University to the care of Bristol City Museum. (A.G. Duff 10/03)

BLACK, F. Alfred

Published 'Occurrence in Britain of Lepyrus binotatus a genus and species new to our lists' in EMM, 6, 1869, p.86. (MD 10/01)

BLACK, James Fbenezer (10 October 1865 - 10 July 1925)

Born at North Berwick, Scotland. He spent his early boyhood in Manchester and later settled at Peebles where he entered into the business of a tweed manufacturer, the profession in which he remained until his early retirement, in about 1905, to take up scientific pursuits. Hudson Beare recorded that 'From early life he had taken a keen interest in entomological work, beginning, as is so often the case, as a Lepidopterist. The fine collection that he made he presented some years ago to the Chambers Museum, Peebles. Turning later on to the study of Coleoptera, to which all the leisure hours of his later life were devoted, he gradually gathered together a very fine collection of British beetles. He was a keen and successful field worker; among his local captures were two specimens of Orochares angustatis, of which only two other British captures have ever been recorded, and a fine series of Lenoticus serratus, both species being found within a short distance of his own home. Not satisfied with working at the British fauna he spent much time and energy on the study of the Cetoniidae of the world, and amassed a remarkably fine collection of this family, one of the best private collections in the country.'

'Modest and unassuming in character, and generous in the extreme in giving to others the benefit of his practical experience, he was a charming companion in the field, and we recall with pleasure many successful days spent with him on entomological trips both in Scotland and England ...' (EMM, 1925, pp. 208-9).

Black, who is also known to have been 'an artist of no mean merit', died at Ludlow while on his way back to Scotland after a six week entomological holiday at Brockenhurst in the New Forest. His beetle collections were acquired by the RSM from Miss Isobel Black of Nethercroft, Peebles. The British insects amounting to 12,824 specimens in 1926 (1926-94), and the foreign Cetoniidae and Lucanidae, amounting to 4,272 specimens in 1927.

Black published nine notes in the EMM, between 1900 and 1923 most referring to interesting captures in Scotland. (MD 10/01)

BLACKBURN, Thomas (16 March 1844 - 28 May 1912)

Born in Islington, London. He was a Church of England clergyman who emigrated to Australia in 1882 after periods firstly as a Civil Servant and later as Chaplain to the Bishop of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands (from end 1876). Blackburn's interest in insects developed in his teens and was shared by his brother (John Bickerton Blackburn (1845 - 1881, a Lepidopterist). His first notes appeared in the EWI, and when this failed he continued writing in the Weekly Entomologist, a magazine which he published himself, at first at Altrincham, Cheshire, and later in London. The Weekly Entomologist came to an end in November 1863 after 65 numbers had been published, and was immediately followed by the EMM of which Blackburn was one of the original five editors. He quickly gave up this post however at the time of taking holy Orders.

Although he did write on other orders Blackburn's main interest was the Coleoptera. He Added several new species to the British list, and amongst many species he described as new to science - 3,069 from Australia alone! - was Apion ryei from the Shetlands (EMM, 11, 1874, p. 126). In 1875 and 1876 he published a number of 'Outline descriptions of British Coleoptera in the Scottish Naturalist; and following his stay in Honolulu, a substantial paper with David Sharp titled 'Memoirs of the Coleoptera of the Hawaiian Islands' in the Scientific Trans. R. Dublin Soc., (2) 3, 1883-7, pp. 119-(290). He also published on the beetles of the Sandwich Islands.

Blackburn died at Woodville Vicarage, Adelaide, South Australia, aged 70. He had disposed of most of his collections some time before this. A British Coleoptera collection was auctioned by Stevens in 1870, and a second British collection was acquired by the South Australia Museum at Adelaide in 1909. Most of his types passed to the NHM in 1909 apart from 334 specimens (out of a total of 898 representing 419 species) being a 'selection' from his Hawaiian collection, which the Museum purchased in 1888. There is a typescript Index of Coleoptera type specimens in the Blackburn collection in the NHM.

There is a lengthy obituary by A.M. Lea in Trans. R. Soc. S. Austral., 36, l912, pp.v-xi, including portrait and bibliography, and shorter accounts in the EMM, 1912, p. 219, and Ent. News, 23, 1912, p. 436. (MD 10/01)

BLACKMORE, Trovey (1835 - 3 September 1876)

Educated in Epping where he met Henry Doubleday who may have influenced him to become interested in entomology. Certainly he collected Lepidoptera as well as Coleoptera. As a result of ill health Blackmore took to making annual visits to Morocco, and it was there that his best entomological work was done. He devoted himself 'to a study of the Insect fauna of the country, making many and valuable discoveries' (EMM, 13, 1876, p.116). 'Captures of Coleoptera from South Morocco' in EMM, 11, 1874, pp. 213-7, records some of these. His home in England was in Wandsworth, London where he died. FES 1864-1876. (MD 10/01)

BLACKWALL, John (20 January 1789, - 11 May 1881)

Well known as the author of A History of the Spiders of Great Britain (1861-64) but also interested himself in a wide range of other natural history subjects including entomology. He was born at Crumpsall Old Hall, near Manchester. Moved to Llanwrst in N. Wales where he lived first at Oaklands (about 1832) and later at Hendre House where he remained for the rest of, his life.

His entomological publications included 'Chrysolina cerealis (L) in North Wales' (ANMT, 4, 1831, pp. 23-4) and 'On the asserted connection of Atropos with Xestobium' (EMM, 4, 1867, pp. 19-20).

FLS and a Member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Gilbert (1977) lists six obituaries of which the most comprehensive is that by Pickard Cambridge in Ent., 14, 1881, pp. 145-50. (MD 10/01)

BLACKWELL, Anita-Dawn (b. 1922)

Taxonomist who in 1964 was making a list of Monmouthshire beetles. Lived in Abergavenny.

FRES 1964-1966. (MD 3/03)

BLADON, James

Published nine notes on entomological subjects of which one concerned Coleoptera: 'Occurrence of Trichius fasciatus near Pontypool' in Zoo., 1847, 1676. FES 1849-1875. (MD 10/01)

BLAIR, Kenneth Gloyne (22 December 1882 - 11 December 1952)

Born in Nottingham, the eldest son of W.N. Blair, the engineer to the St. Pancras Borough Council. Educated at Highgate and at Birkbeck College, London University. Joined the Civil Service in 1901 where he served in the offices of the Paymaster General and of the Supreme Court until 1910 when he seized an opportunity to transfer as an Assistant in the Entomological Department of the NHM. He became Deputy Keeper in 1932 and obtained a D.Sc. at the University of London in 1933.

During the First World War Blair served with the Seaforth Highlanders and was twice invalided home. He never fully recovered from the second of these illnesses which eventually compelled his retirement from the Museum in 1943. He moved to Freshwater in the Isle of Wight in 1945 where he remained until his death.

Blair worked in the NHM on the world Coleoptera collections specialising in the Meloidae, Tenebrionidae, Pyrochroidae and Pythidae in which groups he revised the classification and also described various new species. His publications, amounting to some two hundred articles, were mainly in these groups although he also wrote on other orders too. Indeed, his knowledge of all orders and particularly the literature was well known, and was one of the reasons, along with his editorial skills, why he was particularly welcomed on to the editorial board of the EMM in 1923.

Blair described three British species as new to science Aglyptinus agathidioides (1930), Trixagus seriatus (1942, now synonymised with T. carinifrons (de Bonv.) and Catharmiocerus britannicus (1934), besides bringing forward many others as new to Britain. He was also interested in the problems of distribution and his 'The Beetles of the Scilly Islands' (Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond., 1931, pp. 1211-1258) is notable in that respect.

Harvey, Gilbert & Martin (1996) list a collection of 400 pen and ink drawings by Barbara Hopkins for an unpublished work by Blair, Atlas of Coleoptera Larvae, in the NHM, together with three letters sent to him by Cedric Dover from the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun, India.

FES 1904-1952, President 1940-41, Vice President 1942, Council 1918-20, 1931-33 and 1942, Special Life Fellow 1944. He was also President of the SLENHS 1920-21 and 1931, and was for many years on the Publications Committee before being elected an Honorary Member in 1950.

There are obituaries in EMM, 89, 1953, pp. 25-29 (including photograph and tributes by H. Britten and others) and Proc. SLENHS, 1952-53, pp. xliii-xliv (by C.N. Hawkins, including photograph). Two moths, Blair's Wainscot and Blair's Mocha, which he captured at Freshwater, commemorate his name. (MD 10/01)

Duff (1993), p.5, details Blair's collecting activities in Somerset in 1933, 1936 and 1942 and his correspondence with C.N. Hawkins. (MD 10/03)

BLAND, M.

Subscribed to two copies of Denny, H. (1825). He was FRS and FLS and lived at 30 Montague Place, Russell Square, London. (MD 10/01)

BLANDFORD, Walter Fielding Holloway

Little seems to be known about Blandford although he published some forty articles on beetles, particuarly Scolytidae from Japan, Africa, Ceylon, etc.. He also published, with David Sharp, on the weevils of Japan (Trans. ESL, 1889-1896, in four parts). His first article 'Gyrinus minutus in the South' appeared in EMM, 25, 1889, p.325. He also assisted in the preparation of the supplementary volume of the Library catalogue of the RES published in 1900.

FES 1889-1907, Vice President 1896, Hon. Secretary 1897-98, Council 1894-95 and 1899. FZS.  (MD 10/01)

BLATCH, William Gabriel (1840 - 25 February 1900)

Born in London. Received a 'brief and very meagre' education before being sent to learn shoemaking. Not liking this occupation he became a pupil teacher in the British School in Colchester. He soon left this however to take a situation in the Essex House Idiot Asylum under W. Millard. Millard became his staunch friend and on his advice Blatch became one of the first of the 'Evangelists' sent out into the rural districts by Samuel Morley, M.P.. He was first appointed to the village of Burton Joyce, Nottingham, and then moved to Netherbury, Dorset and subsequently to Gislingham, Suffolk. it was said that the capture of a Peacock butterfly at the latter place was what first stirred him to make a collection of insects.

Within a few years Blatch had turned his attention to the Coleoptera, and although he interested himself at different times in various orders of insects, and land and fresh water shells and all kinds of microscopical objects, beetles always remained his chief concern. On the foundation of the Midland Counties Lunatic Asylum at Knowle, he was appointed Secretary, a post which he held, combined with that of Superintendent, until his death. His contemporaries noted that he was greatly interested in lunacy, a subject which he had studied in detail, and that he did his best to make the lives of the patients at Knowle as happy as possible. Blatch apparently suffered throughout his life from a poor diet in his youth 'caused by his going without proper food in order that he might buy books for his studies'. Eventually he was reduced to little more than a skeleton and in February 1900 was operated upon, but the cause of his trouble was not discovered and he died seventeen days later.

W.W. Fowler, writing Blatch's obituary in the EMM, 36, 1900, pp. 89-90, remarked of his interest in beetles: 'no collector could be keener, and he had an unerring eye for a good locality. His methods were very like those of the late Dr Power, and, like him, when he once found a rare beetle he never rested until he had discovered its habitats and secured a considerable series; in one small mossy bank near Knowle he took no less than four hundred and twelve species, or nearly one eighth of the whole British Coleoptera, and he was instrumental in adding several new species to the British lists, one or two of these being new to science. The writer of the present notice has collected with him on two or three occasions, and has the most pleasant recollections of the time spent in his company. He was especially good at collecting and determining Homalotae and small Staphylinidae, and enriched the Midland list with a large number of records in this obscure group of insects ... He was extremely fond of books, and possessing a most retentive memory, he was able to instruct himself sufficiently in Latin and other languages to understand the scientific books connected with his favourite subject'. Interestingly, the first of Blatch's sixty two published notes and articles on entomology was entitled 'Entomological books for beginners' (Midland Naturalist, 1, 1878, pp. 100-101).

Blatch was an early member of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society and Secretary from 1871 to 1873. His name disappears from the list of members in 1878. With R.C. Bradley, Colbran Wainwright and a few others he founded the Birmingham Entomological Society of which he became President in February 1889, a post which he held until 1893. A paper of his in 1876 calling for greater co-operation between natural history societies in the region, led to the foundation of the Midland Union, and he was also one of the leading advocates for a Natural History Museum in Birmingham.

The Centenary History of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society, published in 1958, notes of Blatch's collection that it was bought after his death 'by Mr (later Sir) G.H. Kenrick, who handed it over to the Birmingham Entomological Society to be held in trust until such time as a Natural History Museum should be provided in the city. The specimens numbered considerably over a thousand, and nine cabinet drawers were exhibited at a Conversazione. There are different accounts of the ultimate fate of the Blatch collection of Midland Coleoptera. One says that part of the collection went to Willoughby Ellis and eventually to the Birmingham City Museum about 1936, while the other says that the main collection was bought by Willoughby Ellis and broken up and sold after his death. Mr S.E.W. Carlier tells me however, that he had access to 'Blatch's collection of Midland Beetles' in the Keeper's room of the City Museum as far back as the period 1916-22'. There is some truth in all of this. Birmingham Museum acquired a 'twelve drawer cabinet' by gift from Sir G.H. Kenrick on 4 July 1912. This collection is now amalgamated with the Carlier collection but Blatch's specimens are distinguished by blue spots. Manchester Museum obtained some 30,000 specimens from R.W. Lloyd in 1958. This collection had formerly belonged to Willoughby Ellis. It is housed in a twenty eight drawer cabinet which appears to be home made, and includes the types of Neuraphes planifrons Blatch; Homalota divisa, v. Blatchii Ellis and Rhizophagus oblongocollis Blatch. Also included are various specimens from Power, Champion, Chappell, Sharp and others. The collection is accompanied by related MSS and printed material including: MS Catalogue of Midland Coleoptera (vol 1 only); Notes of various papers on Coleoptera (with inserted) Localities of the less common British Coleoptera; marked up copy of Sharp's 1883 list; and a substantial Catalogue of British Coleoptera with notes on localities, habitats, etc., and bibliographical references. Bolton Museum also has a small collection of Blatch material acquired as part of the P.B. Mason collection; and York Museum has Blatch's collection of weevils. There are also beetles collected by Blatch in Doncaster Museum (marked as W.E. Blatch).

To the obituaries listed by Gilbert (1977) may be added that by W.W. Fowler in Ent., 1900, p. 136. (MD 10/01)

Sharon Reid at the Central Science Laboratory (DEFRA), York, informs me that there are specimens collected by Blatch in the F. Bates collection there (see BATES, F. and WILLIAMS, B.S.) (MD 10/03)

BLATHWAYT, Linley

A Colonel. Published 'Certain rare beetles found in a wasp's nest' in Proc. Bath Nat. Hist. Field Club, 8, p. 136, the insects being identified for him by W.W. Fowler. He was President of the Bath Microscopical Society in 1891 and published a few other articles on entomology including the entries in the VCH of Somerset, 1906. FES 1885-1919. FLS. (MD 10/01)

BLENKARN, Stanley Arthur (1882 - 1 October 1927)

He is recorded in EMM, 64, 1928, p.17 as 'well known to British Coleopterists as an energetic and successful collector as well as a generous correspondent'. He lived at Norham and later at Purley, and is best known for his work on the Isle of Wight fauna to which he added at least ten new species. He was a member of the SLENHS and exhibited at meetings. FES 1909-12, and 1921-27. (MD 10/01)

BLETCHLEY, John Digby

Specialist in timber insects who lived in Nailsworth, Gloucestershire.

FRES from 1948. (MD 3/03)

BLOMEFIELD, Leonard

see JENYNS, Leonard

BLOMER, Charles (1778 or 1779 - 11 May 1835)

Mentioned by Stephens (1828-1831) as 'my friend' (I, p.60). A list by Blomer of 'Insects captured at Bridgend, Glamorganshire' in Ent. Mag., 1, 1833, pp. 316-17, includes 26 Coleoptera collected 'from last May to September ... in a circle about three miles round this small town'. Approximate dates and places of residence are as follows: pre 1822, Pembrokeshire; 1822 Ilfracome, then Bideford until 1826; 1826-30 Teignmouth; 1830-34 Clifton, nr Bristol; 1834-35 Carisbrook, Isle of Wight. Blomer is recorded to have entered the army 6th May 1795 as an Ensign in the 20th Regiment of Foot. He joined the 31st Regiment of Foot in 1802, and was made a Captain in 1807. He served in the Peninsular War and retired on half pay in 1815 when he transferred to the 36th Regiment of Foot.

Blomer's name was immortalised in Blomer's Rivulet, Discoloxia blomeri, (Lepidoptera: Geometridae).

Details of Blomer's collection are confused. One account says that his cabinet contained 3,728 specimens, mostly Lepidoptera, but including 746 Coleoptera, but Smith (1986) states that it contained 3215 specimens [no mention of numbers of Coleoptera]. She also states that it was purchased by James Dale for £53.11s.8d and then sold by him in 1839 to the Rev. J. Streatfield for £35, who then presented it to the Margate Literary and Scientific Institution [Philosophical Society?]. This Society became bankrupt in 1866 and the museum contents were auctioned in 1868. The fate of the Blomer collection is not known.

An Entomological Journal, 1820-35 [4?] is in the HDO together with a Catalogue of Blomer's cabinet and sundry notes by J.C. Dale. FES 1833-35. (I am grateful to David Sheppard for information) (MD 10/01)

BLUNT, Sidney Herbert

Lepidoptera enthusiast who also worked on Coleoptera. Lived in Birmingham.

FRES from 1957. (MD 3/03)

BODDY, G.

Listed in Ent. Ann., 1860, p. 5 as interested in British Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. His address is given as Bridge Road, Hammersmith, W. (MD 10/01)

BODKIN, G.E.

Educated at University in Canterbury. Bodkin was at one time Government Economic Biologist in British Guiana, and is credited with having done the first serious work on the Coleoptera of that country since Richard Schomburgh in 1848. He published 'Notes on the Coleoptera of British Guiana' in EMM, 55, 1919, pp. 210-219; 264-272. FZS. FLS. FES 1912-1921. (MD 10/01)

BOLD, Thomas John (26 September 1816 - 5 April 1874)

Born at Tanfield Lea, Durham, the eldest son of George Bold, a tradesman. Received his early education at the village school. Following his parents removal to Newbottle he attended the Kepier Grammar School at Houghton-le-Spring, where he remained until his parents moved again to Long Benton. He then went to a school in Newcastle where he subsequently joined the business of Thomas Pattinson, a grocer and seedsman. He stayed with Pattinson until 1867 when the onset of partial paralysis, which effected him for the last seven years of his life, prevented him from taking further part in active labour.

As a schoolboy Bold was of studious habits, and devoted much of his time to reading. Ornithology in particular fascinated him and he contributed a number of articles on this subject to the Zoo. Entomology, however, eventually took over from this interest. Joseph Wright, writing his obituary in Natural History Transactions of Northumberland, Durham, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 8, 1883, pp. 1-14, noted that 'like most beginners he started with Lepidoptera but soon turned to the Coleoptera, which heneceforth became his special study. He also gave much attention to the Hymenoptera and Hemiptera ... on his entering the service of Mr Pattinson he came to lodge in Newcastle, visiting his parents at Long Benton regularly at each weekend; and sometimes also in the long summer evenings walking out to see them. In these visits he always kept his favourite pursuits before him, and in his walks ... always added something fresh to his collections. These visits to home were always pleasant, for his brothers George and Edwin, though they did not devote themselves to the study of Natural History, yet in their rambles in the neighbourhood they never forgot him, and on his visits home there was always some fresh insect for him, or some new locality for those already known... The banks of the Tyne, the Teams, and the Derwent, and their neighbourhood afforded him a grand hunting ground. The Ouse Burn was also a favourite spot with him ... on holiday times ... the lake at Gosforth, and Prestwick Car became the scene of his visits. He also... explored the sea coast both northward and southward ... His summer holidays were usually spent with Mr John Addison of Banks House, Lanercost, and made admirable use of these opportunities in exploring the at that time almost unknown entomology of the banks of the Irthing, in the neighbourhood of Lanercost, Naworth and Gilsland.'

In 1843 Bold joined the Wallis Society founded by James Hardy, another Coleopterist, with whom he became very friendly, Wright noting that 'they contrived to meet once or twice a week, and to compare and examine their captures'. It was this information which subsequently led to their joint publication of the Catalogue of the Insects of Northumberland and Durham,, 1846-52. Other friends were Thomas Pigg, also an entomologist, and John Hancock whom he 'occasionally accompanied on his visits to the sea coast'. On the formation of the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club both Bold and Hardy became members, and Bold 'entered into the work of the Club with characteristic energy'. In particular he was active on the Entomological Committee. He was also a Hon. Member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle. Bold died at his residence at Long Benton, following an attack of bronchitis.

Although Bold published more than 70 articles, etc., on Coleoptera, the Catalogue was undoubtedly his best known work. Wright records a conversation with James Hardy about their working methods in compiling it: 'the contributions to the Catalogue were pretty equally shared between us.' Bold apparently porovided most of the literary references and 'with respect to the gathering of the material we seldom interfered with each other's collecting ground, and I believe never but once worked together in company, when we visited Prestwick Carr'. Bold apparently confined himself to the southern areas and Hardy took the northern ones. Following the onset of Bold's paralysis and his inability to get out, he published a revision of the Catalogue which increased its size by almost one third, and was entirely his own work.

Bold's collection is now in the Hancock Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where it has been amalgamated with those of T.F. Marriner, and Gardner in three cabinets and some fifteen store boxes. Although many of the specimens are without documentation, David Sheppard, to whom I am grateful for information about Bold, informs me that most of the Bold specimens can be distinguished. His Journal, to which there are various references by Wright, and some letters, are in the Library of the Northumbrian Natural History Society, of which Bold was at one time Hon. Entomological Curator.

Apart from the obituary by Wright (which includes a complete bibliography) there is another in EMM, 11, 1874, pp. 20-21. (MD 10/01)

BOLITHO, Edward

Listed in Ent. Ann., 1857 and 1860 as interested in Coleoptera and Lepidoptera. His address is given as Arnold Point, no 3 cottage, Embankment Road, Plymouth. (MD 10/01)

BONAPARTE-WYSE, L.H.

Published several notes on Irish Coleoptera in Irish Naturalist between 1911 and 1916. (MD 10/01)

BOND, William James

Published the capture of Leptura scutellata, Platypus cylindrus, and Clytus arcuatus in Hainault Forest in 1829 (EMM, 82, 1, 1833, pp. 211-212. In the note he refers to a Mr Bydder as his 'old friend and instructor in entomology'. Two further notes in the same periodical do not refer to Coleoptera. (MD 10/01)

BOOCOCK, Denis

Worked particularly on insects attacking trees and timber, and set up a pest control company in Abu Dhabi.

FRES from 1958. (MD 3/03)

BOON, O.C.

A collection of Coleoptera which Boon made in Dorset in the 1940s and 1950s is in Hull University, Department of Zoology. He may have lived at Herringston, near Dorchester as most of the more common species were taken there at various dates. There is also some material in the collection from the Isle of Wight. (Information from Roger Key) (MD 10/01)

BOOT, Alfred

Listed in Ent. Ann., in 1857 and 1860 as interested in British insects of all orders. His address is given as 16 Park Row (Road), Greenwich. (MD 10/01)

BOSWELL, John Thomas (1822 - 31 January 1888)

At one time known as Boswell Syme. Born in Edinburgh and educated as a Civil Engineer, but gave this up after a time to become a botanist, a subject on which he lectured at the Charing Cross and Middlesex Hospitals. Well known as the concluder of Sowerby's English Botany. On the death of a relative in about 1868 he succeeded to the family estate at Balmuto and it was at this time that he dropped the name Syme.

Boswell is known to have been interested in entomology as well as botany, and to have formed a fine collection of Lepidoptera. A note entitled 'Coleoptera of Scotland, a correction' in the Scottish Naturalist, 82, 5, 1880, 311, however, makes clear that he collected beetles too. The note refers to David Sharp having copied Murray's earlier statement that Boswell had taken Magdalinus atramentarius at 'Dollar': 'I fancy the mistake arose from Mr Murray mistaking 'Dover' for 'Dollar' as I have specimens in my cabinet from the former place'.

There are obituary notices in EMM, 82, 24, 1888, p. 235; and in Psyche, 82, 5, 1889, p. 156. (MD 10/01)

BOUCHARD, Peter (4 April 1816 - 1865

Notes in the Ent. Ann., 1857 (p.16) and 1860 (p.5) state that Bouchard 'Collects for entomologists and sells'. His address is given as Marling Pitts Cottage, Sutton, Surrey. Chalmers Hunt (1976) p.103 records that a collection of British insects belonging to Bouchard was sold by Stevens on 28 March 1865; and perhaps he is the 'Boucard, Natural History dealer' who sold 309 lots of natural history items, including insects, at Stevens on 7 November 1879 (p. 113) Smith (1986) records various insects including Coleoptera, purchased from him between 1868 and 1889, now in the HDO.(MD 10/01)

Brian E. Bouchard informs me that Peter Bouchard was his great, great grandfather 'of Huguenot descent, was born ... in Bethnal Green. When he married in 1838 his occupation was Hearth Rug Maker but he was active as an [amateur?] entomologist by 1845. The family moved to Sutton around 1855/56 so, it is believed, that he could collect specimens on the North Downs and elsewhere, subsequently making his living as a 'Naturalist'. A dispute with H.J. Harding, President of the Haggerstone Entomological Society, led to a libel case in 1860 which involved Messers Newman and Stainton and the Entomologists Weekly Intelligencer.

A small claim to celebrity is based on his discovery of Ophiodes lunaris at Killarney during 1864 vide a Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Ireland by W.F. De Vismes Kane, 1901. A major interest was microlepidoptera. The NHM registers reveal various donations and sales to that institution between 1857 and 1866 including specimens sent back to Stevens from the ill fated trip to South America.

A report of his demise may be found in the EMM, 2, 1865.' [This states: 'The President regretted to announce...the death of Mr Peter Bouchard, so well known to all British entomologists. Mr Bouchard had proceeded to Santa Martha, in New Granada, in order to collect insects, and had already sent home a valuable collection, when he was seized with fever, which carried him off in four days'] (MD 10/03)

BOUSKELL, Frank

Well known Coleopterist around 1900. His first published entomological note was on the Lepidoptera, but by 1893 when he wrote 'Oberea oculata (L) at Wicken' in ERJV, 4, 1893, p. 272, his attention appears to have turned mainly to the Coleoptera, although he did retain his interest in butterflies. Subsequently he published a number of other articles in this periodical, in one of which (15, 1903, p.288) he mentions collecting with the Reverend Birkenhead near Market Harborough, Leicestershire. Other notes refer to collecting in the New Forest. He also published one article on parthenogenesis in Trans. Leics. Lit. Phil. Soc., 4, 1897, pp. 418-27, the periodical which appears to include most of his other published material.

He is listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1904-5 at Market Bosworth, Nuneaton and in the same periodical in 1906-7 at Sandown Road, Knighton, Leicestershire. FRES. Surprisingly, no obituary notices of him are recorded. (MD 10/01)

BOWELL, Ernest W.W.

Published a number of articles on Lepidoptera and two on Coleoptera: 'Agrilus sinuatus in the New Forest' (ERJV, 2, 1891, p. 112) and 'Coleoptera in Herefordshire' (ibid., 3, 1892, p.86). The New Forest Agrilus are now in the HDO (Smith (1986) p.105) and the second is a list of Longicornia only. Bowell gives his address at these times as Wadham College, Oxford, and Staplehurst, Kent. (MD 10/01)

BOWHILL, James W.

The register in the entomological Department at the RSM records the acquisition of a general collection of insects made by Bowhill from his wife in 1931 (1931.29). She lived at Morelands, Grange Loan, Edinburgh. (MD 10/01)

BOWRING, John Charles (24 March 1821 - 20 June 1893)

There is an excellent article on Bowring by James Troyer in Archives of Natural History, (1982) 10(3), pp. 515-529, from which much of the following is taken.

Born into a large family of textile merchants long established in Devonshire. He was the eldest of eight children of Sir John Bowring, the politician. There is no information about his upbringing, but by the spring of 1842 he was engaged as a businessman in Hong Kong, where he must have been one of the first British residents.  By 1848, and perhaps earlier, he was working for the well known firm of Jardine, Matheson and Company, and by 1854 when his father was appointed Governor of Hong Kong, he became a full partner in the company. Bowring remained in Hong Kong until 1864, when he returned to England a rich man at the age of 43. He married in 1863 and after his first wife's death, again in 1866. By his second wife he had seven sons and one daughter. He was a J.P. for Devon, became Freeman of the city of Exeter in 1866, before moving to an estate in Windsor Forest, Forest Farm, where he died.

Bowring appears to have collected insects from the time he first arrived in China. By 1848 he is recorded to have possessed upwards of 600 species of Coleoptera largely from the Hong Kong and Macao districts, and by 1855 this number had grown to some 1,300. He became a friend of J.G. Champion (q.v.) when the latter was resident in Hong Kong during the years 1847-50, and the two often collected together and exchanged specimens. W.W.Fowler in his introductory volume to the FBI notes that Bowring also collected at Dacca in Bengal. As early as 1844 he was sending specimens to the British Museum, and he continued this practice until 1863, when anticipating retirement, he presented his entire collection to that institution. Troyer notes that no two sources agree about the number of specimens involved estimates varying from 84,240 to 230,000. F. Smith, Proc. ESL, 1864, pp. 196-216, notes that the collection was housed in 400 cabinet drawers. Similarly, there is disagreement about the names of the collectors from whom Bowring acquired specimens. The total of references adds up to the following: Frederick Bates, Brettingham, Curtis, L.A.A. Chevrolat (Longicornia), Robert Fortune, Henri Jekel (1857, Rhyncophora), M. Mouhot, F.J.S. Parry (Anthribidae), T. Tatum (Geodephaga) and Afred Russel Wallace. All sources agree in mentioning the collections of Chevrolat, Jekel and Tatum. Apart from the specimens in the British Museum I have also seen beetles bearing Bowring's labels in the collection of the Albert Memorial Museum Exeter.

Westwood described Bowring, as 'our indefatigable Corresponding Member [of the FES]', but in spite of his prowess as a writer of letters, some of which were published by their recipients, he published only few articles himself. Of these his notes on parasitism of the firefly Fulgora were the most important for they were the first record of parasitic Lepidoptera. Although Bowring is recorded to have kept a journal in which he noted names for new species, most of his captures were named for him by others. It is not surprising, therefore, that between 1844 and 1939 a total of 45 species and two varieties were established with the epithets bowringi or bowringii.

Bowring also devoted a considerable amount of time to botanical studies, he formed large collections of plants and several species are named after him. Troyer's article includes a full bibliography and a list of Bowring's publications. FES (1847), FLS (1876). (MD 10/01)

BOYCE, Peter R. (b. 20 June 1931)

Diptera specialist who also worked on Coleoptera. Lived at Chesham, Buckinghamshire.

FRES 1956-1960. (MD 3/03)

BOYS, W.J.E.

A Captain in the army. Recorded in various volumes of the FBI series as having collected Coleoptera in that country. The species Paussus boysi Westwood (1845) and Rhysodes boysi Arrow (1901) are named after him.

Smith (1986) notes that Boys sent insects to Hope in 1842, now in the HDO, together with a letter. The HDO also has a cabinet of insects other than Coleoptera purchased by Westwood in 1848, and paintings and transfers of Indian insects and the manuscript of his paper on Mutilla read to the ESL, June 1843. FES 1842-43. (MD 10/01)

BRACKENBURY, Austin

Donated over 4,000 insects, including many Coleoptera collected in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire from 1975 to 1981, to Sheffield Museum. (Information from Steven Garland). (MD 12/01)

BRADBURY, C.

Published 'A beetle parasitic in wasp's nests' in Ent., 6, 1872, pp.2-3. (MD 12/01)

BRADLEY, J.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, p.6 as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. At that time he lived at 23 Richmond Street, Preston. (MD 12/01)

BRAIKENRIDGE, George Weare

A Reverend. Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, p. 6 as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. He was FLS and FZS and gave his addresses as Broomwell House, Brislington, near Bath, and Clevedon, near Bristol. (MD 12/01)

BRAINE, W.

Recorded by G.J. Arrow, FBI, Lamellicornia, Rutelinae, etc., 1917, as having collected Rutelinae near Colombo, Ceylon. (MD 12/01)

BRAUER, Richard

A doctor. Listed in Naturalist's Directory, 1904-5, as interested in Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera and marine zoology. At this time he lived at St. John's Road, Knutsford, Cheshire. In the 1906-7 edition of this periodical his name does not occur. There is a collection of some 484 specimens of exotic Rhyncophora in Bolton Museum, collected by Bauer in 1905(?), which was purchased from A. Ford for £2-10s (Accession no. 128.05).

A collection of exotic Lepidoptera collected by Bauer was sold by Stevens on 14 November 1905. (MD 12/01)

BRAZIER, J.W.

Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me there are beetles collected by Brazier in the New Hebrides in the Rippon collection, NMW. (MD 12/01)

BREWER, James Alexander (d. c.1890)

Listed in Ent. Ann., 1860, at Holmesdale House, Reigate, and as being interested in British Coleoptera. He published 'Corticaria truncatella and Ceuthorhynchus biguttatus taken at Worthing' in Trans. ESL, (3)2, Proc. 81, 1865; 'Coleoptera new for the Reigate district' in Proc. Holmesdale Nat. Hist. Club, 1865-66, p. 8 and 1866-67, 33-34, p. 41; and 'Homalota saundersi Rye captured on Reigate Heath', ibid., 1866-67, p.35. He appears to have been quite a well known collector in his day and there are various references to him in contemporary literature and diaries eg. MS Diary of Janson in the Department of Zoology's entomological collections at Cambridge. Tim Winter has suggested to me that he may have been a dealer, but I know of only one recorded sale of beetles by Brewer at Stevens's auction rooms on 10 December 1869.

Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me there are beetles collected by Brewer in the Rippon collection, NMW, and Smith (1986) p. 105 mentions 52 Carabidae from Cartagena, Spain in the HDO purchased at the sale of the E. Brown collection, included in lot 345, March 1877. (MD 12/01)

BRIGHTWELL, Thomas

Listed as a subscriber to Denny, H. (1825). Lived at Surrey Street, Norwich. Mentioned by Stephens (1828, p.11) 'about ten years back it (Cicindela germanica) was observed by Mr Brightwell in abundance running amongst the grass at Blackgang Chine in the Isle of Wight'. Records of accessions by the local Society, in Norwich Castle Museum, record that Brightwell gave foreign Coleoptera in 1848 and 1850 (including a specimen from Brazil). FLS. (MD 12/01)

BRISTOW, J.

There are various references to J.Bristow's collection in Johnson & Halbert (1902). (MD 12/01)

BRITTEN, Harry (3 September 1870 - 31 January 1954)

Born at Whiteparish in Wiltshire one of six children of Harriet Emma and Henry Britten. After living briefly in Scotland, the family moved to Cumberland where Harry started his career as a kennel boy. Later, after a time spent working on the railways, he became head keeper on a large estate. It was in Cumberland that he first became interested in entomology, particularly Lepidoptera, but it was not long before he took up other orders including Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Arachnida. In the Coleoptera he was well-known for his work on the Ptiliidae and other small species. In 1913 he joined the staff of the HDO under Professor Poulton, where he spent five years in the company of J. Collins and A.H.Hamm, amongst others. He then joined the firm of Flatters and Garnett for a short period before moving, in 1919, to the Manchester Museum as Assistant Keeper of Entomology to T.A. Coward, the acting Keeper, a post which he held until his retirement in 1937.

Described by one of his many admirers as a 'big kindly man obviously meant for the moors and open spaces', it was as a collector and practical museum worker, rather than as a writer, that Britten made his reputation. Amongst the papers which he did publish, his revision of Ptenidium, with E.A. Newbery (EMM, 46, 1910, pp. 178-183); his account of the Ptiliidae of the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to the Seychelles (Trans. Linn. Soc. Zool., 19, 1926, pp.87-92) and his paper on Choleva (EMM, 54, 1918, p.30); and many short notes in the Lancashire Naturalist, the Lancashire and Cheshire Naturalist, and the North Western Naturalist, the last including a list of the Coleoptera of the Isle of Man (1943-46), are perhaps the best known. He also wrote, in conjunction with his friend H. Hayhurst, a book Insect Pests of Stored Products, 1940.

Apart from the huge amount of material which Britten amassed in his official capacity at the Manchester Museum, he also accumulated a personal collection of British insects in 100 storeboxes. He took these with him on his retirement, but they returned to the Museum in 1951 on his death. Other specimens collected by Britten which I have seen are in the Liverpool and Doncaster Museums. Smith (1986) p.105 lists 12 Ptiliidae from the Seychelles in the HDO and other non Coleoptera in the HDO

Britten was a supporter of many natural history societies including the Manchester Microscopical Society, of which he was President; the Manchester Entomological Society, of which he held various offices including President; the North Western Naturalist's Union; the North Eastern Naturalist's Union; the Royal Entomological Society, of which he was a Special Life Fellow; the Linnean Society; and the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society.  In 1952 he was awarded an honorary M.Sc. by the Manchester University.

To the five obituaries listed by Gilbert (1977) may be added that by L.W. Grensted in EMM, 90, 1954, p.72. (MD 12/01)

BRITTON, E.B.

Wrote Coleoptera: Scarbaeoidea, Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects, 5(11), 1956, pp.1-29. (MD 12/01)

BROAD, C.

Sold a collection of exotic Coleoptera, and British and exotic Lepidoptera at Stevens's auction rooms on 2 June 1897 (Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p.133) (MD 12/01)

BROADHURST, H.

Mentioned in Sharpe (1908) as an artizan of Manchester and an energetic Coleopterist.

BROADHURST, William

Perhaps related to the above. Published 'Occurence of Pissodes notatus near Manchester' in EMM, 7, 1870, pp. 80-81; and 'Captures of Coleoptera in the Manchester district during the past winter', ibid., 8 1872, p. 289. (MD 12/01)

BROCKLESBY, J.S.

Listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1904-7, as interested in Lepidoptera, Coleoptera and Neuroptera. At this time he lived at 17, Fairlawn Villas, Merton, Surrey. He published a number of articles in Ent. but none on Coleoptera. (MD 12/01)

BRODERICK, F.N.

Lived at Ryde in the Isle of Wight. Published 'Setting of Coleoptera' and 'Captures of Coleoptera' in Weekly Entomologist, 1862-63, p. 21 and pp. 109-110; and 'Chirping Beetles' in Science Gossip, (2) 1866-67, p. 41. (MD 12/01)

BRODIE, N.S.

Lepidopterist. But mentioned in G.J. Arrow, FBI, Lamellicornia, 1917, p.159 as having collected Rutelinae at Chittore, near Madras. Smith (1986) records that his Lepidoptera collections in the HDO include letters from Mrs Brodie. (MD 12/01)

BRODIE, Peter Bellinger (1815 - 1 November 1897)

Vicar of Rowington in Warwickshire for 44 years. An accomplished geologist, he made a particular study of fossil insects and published many articles on them, some of which refer to Coleoptera. Perhaps his best known work is his rare book History of the Fossil Insects of the Secondary Rocks of Britain, 1845, which includes ten plates by J.O. Westwood. He was a member of the Geological Society from 1834.

Brodie’s finds are discussed in Ross, A.J and Jarzembowski, E.A. 'A Provisional Checklist of the Fossil Insects from the Purbeck Group of Wiltshire' in The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, 89, 1996, pp. 106-115, and there are obituaries in EMM, 33, 1897, p. 284 and Trans. ESL, 1897, lxxii.

Smith (1986) records letters from Brodie and W.R. Brodie to J.O. Westwood (1853-4) in the HDO. (MD 12/01)

BRODIE, William (1831 - 6 August 1909)

Born at Peterhead, Aberdeen, but moved to the County of York, Canada as a child. His father is recorded to have 'hewn' his farm out of the forest there. Brodie took a degree in dentistry at the Dental College of Toronto, but after practising for many years, gave this up in 1903 to take charge of the Biological Department of the Provincial Museum. His interests are recorded to have ranged over all natural history subjects, but his favourite pursuit was entomology, and galls in particular. He was an omnivorous reader and had a very retentive memory so that he could recite hundreds of Scottish ballads, etc. He had six children of which three daughters succeeded him.

He published notes on various entomological subjects including Coleoptera, and with J.E. White, A Check List of Insects of the Dominion of Canada, Toronto, 1883.

There are obituaries in Canadian Entomologist, 41, 1909, pp. 377-380 and 42, 1910, pp.47-48; and in Rep. Ent. Soc. Ontario, 40, 1909, p. 129, by F. Morris. (MD 12/01)

BROOKS

Mentioned by Johnson & Halbert (1902), p.542, as a collector of Irish Coleoptera. (MD 12/01)

BROOKS, J.M.

Simon Hayhow tells me there are beetles collected by Brooks in the foreign collection at Oldham Museum. (MD 12/01)

BROOME, Roderick R. (8 April 1899 - 23 March 1966)

An engineer who had a particular interest as an angler in Coleoptera, Lepidoptera and Diptera. Collections were at one time intended for the SLES.

FLS and FRES 1940-death. (MD 3/03)

BROWN, Edwin (1819 - 1 September 1876)

In the chapter on 'Insect Sales' in A Romance of the Rostrum, E.G. Allingham notes 'It was reserved for Mr Stevens to secure for the beetles the highest price paid for a single insect apart from the butterfly. A very famous sale of 1877 was that of the collection of Mr Edwin Brown, a banker of Burton on Trent. This collection contained most wonderful specimens, among them a great portion of the exotic beetles personally collected by Mr A.R. Wallace, the well-known naturalist, and collections formed by Count Castlenau, Mr Saunders, Major Parry, M. Thomson. M. Deyrolle, and Mr Carter. It was attended by all the naturalists of any note in England and on the Continent; R. Oberthur, the famous French coleopterist, attended in person, one of the only two occasions on which he personally attended an auction sale, and Count Mniszech's curator was there. Single specimens sold for £5 10s (Amblychila piccolomini); £7 10s (Platychila pallida); Oberthur paid £9 19s 6d for Mouhotia gloriosa and Deyrolle bought a pair (Anacamptorrhina ignipes) for £10 10s. Armitage, the Academcian, bought up many specimens for models for his Academy picture 'After an Entomological Sale' painted in 1878. As far as the naturalists gloating over their treasures, are concerned, the picture is not quite true to life, for they were drawn, not from the actual bidders, but from the artists and his friends, P.H. Calderon and others; however, the idea of the scene was taken from the sale of the Brown beetles. As a whole the collection realized £1,658 19s' (MD note: I am still waiting to hear from someone who can tell me the whereabouts of the Armitage painting!)

At the time of his death in Tenby from apoplexy, Brown was Manager of the Burton, Uttoxeter, and Ashbourn Bank, a position he had held for twenty five of the forty two years he had been connected with the bank. He was interested in all branches of natural history, and he is recorded to have had enormous stores of treasures, geological, zoological and botanical, British and exotic, which he kept in a large room adjoining his house.

He published very little, his most notable works being the entomological portion of Sir Oswald Moseley's Natural History of Tutbury, 1863; and a paper on Australian Carabidae in Trans. ESL, 1869, pp. 351-353.

Specimens from Brown's collections exist in Bolton Museum (acquired with the P.B. Mason collection) and in the NHM. The History of the Collections contained in the Natural History Departments of the British Museum, ii, 1906, p. 582 records 'Edwin Brown had very extensive collections of Coleoptera. He purchased James Thomson's collection of Geodephaga, or at least a considerable portion of it. He also had a large number of specimens marked 'ex. cab. Castelnau'. He purchased A.R. Wallace's collection of Malayan Cetonidae. His collections were sold at auction at Stevens's rooms in March, 1877. The Trustees purchased several lots of Cicindelidae and Carabidae, including types of Thomson, Guerin, etc. Some of the Carabidae were in the original cartons as purchased from Thomson. The Trustees also purchased lots of Cetoniadae, including Euryomia, with all Wallace's types, and a series of Protaetia. Other lots were purchased by Mr Pascoe, and these are also now in the Museum.' The Supplement to this volume records that 3,300 specimens were involved (p. 37). Smith (1986) p.106 records that over 1,500 specimens of Coleoptera and Hymenoptera in the HDO were purchased at the March 1877 sale for £7 11s 6d and included some Carabidae from Wallace and Brewer.

As far as Brown's acquisitions from the Castelnau collection are concerned, a note in the EMM, 38, p. 8 is interesting: 'The Carabidae were purchased by Marquis Doria and presented to the Genoa Museum. It was the Cicindelidae not the Carabidae that Mr Brown acquired'.

There are obituaries of Brown in EMM, 13, 1876, pp. 116-117, and in Proc. ESL, 1876, p. xliii. FESL from 1849. (MD 12/01)

Mick Cooper informs me that there is further information about Brown in Nottingham Museum. (MD 10/03)

BROWN, Eric Septimus (26 May 1912 - 10 September 1972)

Educated at Magdalen School, Oxford and St. Peter Hall, Oxford. His early contributions to entomology were primarily concerned with the taxonomy, distribution and ecology of aquatic insects, especially Corixidae and other aquatic Hemiptera in many parts of the British Isles and in the Faroe Islands. Later he became interested in insect migration too, and it is these subjects which dominate his extensive list of publications. Perhaps his best known work on the Coleoptera was The Aquatic Coleoptera of North Wales, published by the Society for British Entomology in 1948.

In 1946 he worked briefly with the Middle East Anti Locust Unit in Tripolitania on locust control, and in 1951 he became a member of the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology's pool of entomologists. In this latter capacity he worked in the Seychelles, the Soloman Islands, the Middle East and Africa, the study of armyworms occupying a great deal of his time.

Brown bequeathed the greater part of his collections to the HDO. These include his named collections of British beetles, mainly aquatic, and his unnamed foreign insects which also include aquatic Coleoptera. Foreign collections from the Soloman Islands, New Guinea, Australia, the Seychelles, Madagascar and East Africa are in the NHM where is also an extensive collection of reports and manuscripts acquired from the Natural Resources Institute in 1988 (listed in Harvey et al. (1996), pp. 28-29). His collections of Hertfordshire beetles are mentioned in C.T. Gimingham 'Notes on the List of Hertfordshire Coleoptera...' in Trans. Hertfordshire Nat. Hist. Soc. 24(4), 1955. Smith (1986) records 'Notebooks on Hemiptera (mainly aquatic); manuscript notes on East African Army Worm project and work in the Middle East; twelve diaries written in Madagascar, Seychelles, and Kenya' in the HDO.

There is an obituary by E. Betts, including a photograph and complete list of publications, in EMM, 109, 1973, pp. 65-71. (MD 12/01)

BROWN, J.L.

A photocopy of a typescript of the early minutes of the local Society, in Norwich Castle Museum, records that Brown gave (?) a collection in 1835. (MD 12/01)

BROWN, J. Stevenson

Published 'Notes on the anatomy of Cicindela sexguttata' in Journal Micr. Nat. Sci., (3)1(10), 1891, pp. 97-106. (MD 12/01)

BROWN, Robert (21 December 1773 - 10 June 1858)

Musgrave (1932) records that Brown was a botanist who visited Australia as naturalist on board the Investigator commanded by Captain Flinders. He left England in 1801 and was in Australia until 1805. He visited the Islands in Bass Straits, the settlements of Port Dalrymple and Hobart in Tasmania, and the Hawkesbury, Hunter and Williams River Valleys in New South Wales. He made collections of insects which were described by W.S. Macleay (1819), W. Kirby (1818) and W.E. Leach (1819). These included Coleoptera, and Kirby named Cetonia brownii after him.

There is a detailed account of Brown and the voyage, by P.I. Edwards in J. Soc. Biblphy Nat. Hist., 7, 1976, pp.385-407. (MD 12/01)

BROWN, Thomas

Harvey et al. (1996), p. 30, lists a single sheet 'Coleoptera for and from the British Museum, 1893' in the NHM.

BROWNE, Balfour

see BALFOUR-BROWNE

BROWNE, F.G.

Harvey et al. (1996) p.30 lists a collection of typescripts, manuscripts, 300 letters, collecting locations, drawings, etc. related to wood boring beetles, in the NHM.

BROWNE, F.H.

A collection of insects in twelve drawers was given to the Buckinghamshire County Museum at Aylesbury by the Reverend F.H.Browne (BCM 612.05). It is no longer maintained separately. The material was collected in Buckinghamshire and elsewhere. FGS. (MD 12/01)

BROWNE, H.W.

Listed in the Ent. Ann. in 1857 and 1860 as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His address is recorded as 1 Westbourne Street, Hyde Park Gardens, (London). (MD 12/01)

BROWNE, J. Montgomery

Published 'Recently recorded Irish Coleoptera', in British Naturalist, 1, 1891, pp. 113-115; and several notes in the Irish Naturalist in 1892 and 1893, including Helodes phellandrii new to the Dublin list, and Thiamis suturalis new to Ireland. (MD 12/01)

BROWNE, W.A.F.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, as interested in Coleoptera. Garth Foster tells me that he was the grandfather of Prof. W.A. Balfour-Browne and that he was Queens Visitor in Lunacy and first Superintendent of the Crichton Institution, Dumfries. Mentioned (but not named) in British Water Beetles and Other Things, 1962, p.6. (MD 12/01)

BROWNING, F. Robert

Duff (1993) p.6 records that Browning 'was apparently associated with the Horniman Museum, Forest Hill, but he collected in Somerset (mainly near Axbridge) in 1940-41, 1943, 1949-50 and 1952, presumably during periodic visits or holidays. Browning lived in Kent and at one time was working at the Dept. of Biology, Kent College, Pembury. The whereabouts of Browning's collection is not known to me, but may still exist. Some of Browning's records, supposedly from 'Cross, nr.Axbridge' (some 12km from the sea), are of more-or-less strictly coastal species and in fact probably originated from the vicinity of Burnham-on-Sea... [they] are taken from W.A. Wilson's card index in Taunton Museum. (MD 10/03)

BRUCE, W.S.

See A. Thornley 'On some Coleoptera from the summit of Ben Nevis, collected by Mr W.S.Bruce' in Ann. Scottish Nat. Hist., Jan. 1896, pp. 28-37. The Museum Register at the RSM records that a collection of 195 insects from the summit of Ben Nevis, was given by Bruce in 1896-7. (MD 12/01)

BRUNTON, Thomas

Published 'Additions to Dr Power's list of Irish Coleoptera' in Ent., 11, 1878, pp. 94-95: 'I can only speak of the district surrounding Glenarm, say within a radius of five miles. I have not zealously investigated this locality the Coleoptera only being a secondary consideration with me. When in search of Lepidoptera I have taken at different times over 200 species ...'. Brunton is referred to by Johnson & Halbert (1902), pp.543, 578.

He lived at Glenarm Castle, Larne. (MD 12/01)

BRYANT, Gilbert Ernest (1878-1965)

Well known expert on Chelsea porcelain and compiler of information about Country Houses.

Bryant was an Assistant at the Imperial Institute of Entomology and travelled extensively to most parts of the world amassing a large collection of Coleoptera (c.50,000 specimens) which was presented to the NHM. In 1908 he visited Australia where his travels were recorded by A.M. Lea, who described some of the beetles he collected. Bryant published 'New Species of Pselaphidae' in EMM, 51, 1915, pp.297-302; and 'Notes on Synonymy in the Phytophaga' in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 12, 1923, pp. 130-147.

There are specimens in Doncaster Museum's general collection collected by B.A. Cooper which were determined by Bryant. Two notebooks are in the NHM one containing details of Coleoptera caught in Borneo 1913-1914 and the other in Sarawak, 1913-1919.

Is this the 'Bryant' perhaps whose collection of British Coleoptera was sold at Stevens's rooms on 12 October 1920?

There is an obituary in the Times 24 March 1965. (MD 12/01)

BRYCE, D.

A collection of 340 British Coleoptera, mainly collected around 1949-50, although some are earlier, is in Sheffield Museum. Localities include Isle of Wight, S.W. Yorkshire, Hampshire, Westmorland, N. Wales, but mostly Lancashire. (I am grateful to Steve Garland for pointing out this collection to me). (MD 12/01)

BUCHAN-HEPBURN, A.

Published a number of notes on Scottish Coleoptera in the 1870s including 'Additional localities of Scottish Coleoptera', Scottish Naturalist, 4, 1878, p.248, and two notes on Aromia moschata, ibid., 3, 1875, p.112, and Ent., 11, 1878, p.95. (MD 12/01)

BUCK, Frederick Duncan (4 March 1916 - 20 March 1975)

Born in Drury Lane, London. His father was a major in the army, and his mother a shopkeeper. Educated in an army school and at St. Dunstans in the West, before becoming an apprentice in the printing trade. From 1930 he worked at the Lincoln's Inn Press until 1941 when he was called up for service as a signal man in the Queens Royal Regiment. Shortly after he joined the intelligence section serving with the Desert Rats and in all the Middle East campaigns under Montgomery. He gained all five stars and was promoted to regimental sergeant. After the completion of the North Africa campaign he served in Europe until 1946 when he was demobbed. On his return home he worked for a short while with the Cable Press at Kings Cross before becoming Works Manager with Potter Brothers, the producers of the Hackney Gazette. In 1964, at the age of 47, he was declared redundant. A period of intensive re-education followed before he took up a new post with the Anchor Press at Tiptree, where he remained until his death from a heart attack. Buck had married one of his cousins, Evelyn Mason in 1941 and had three children.

Buck's interest in natural history appears to have been first stimulated by visits as a schoolboy to his numerous relatives in Norfolk. At the age of twenty he joined the SLENHS with which he remained closely involved for the rest of his life, serving on the Council from 1940, as lanternist until 1953, vice president in 1954, and finally president in 1955. Between 1956 and 1973 he edited the Society's Proceedings. His particular interest in beetles had certainly developed by the time of the War for his obituary in Proc. BENHS, 10, 1977, pp.30-33, states: 'To hear Freddie talk of the War one could well believe that it consisted largely of collecting beetles on the continent and in North Africa, under conditions of extreme difficulties and under the eyes of frowning and disapproving authority'. The writer also notes that 'he was a superb field worker and taxonomist. He used to boast that his collection was not a neat display of tidily named species but a working collection filled with partly dissected specimens. During his time at the Hackney Gazette when he lived in Canonbury, he published most of his entomological papers, mainly on new species of foreign coleoptera. After he moved to Tiptree his interests gradually changed from taxonomy towards field studies and conservation'.

Of Buck's publications on the British Coleoptera perhaps the best known are his 'A Provisional List of the Coleoptera of Epping Forest' (EMM, 91, 1955, pp.174-192); 'A Provisional List of the Coleoptera in Wood Walton Fen Hunts., (Proc. SLENHS, 1961, 93-117); and 'The British Mycetophagidae and Colydiidae', (ibid., 1955, pp. 53-66).

Duff (1993) p.7 records that Buck’s notebooks are in Colchester Museum. (MD 10/03)

Trevor James tells me that there are specimens collected by Buck in the D.G. Hall collection at Baldock Museum. (MD 12/01)

BUCK, T.

Published a note on Glow worms in Science Gossip, 8, 1873, p.68. (MD 12/01)

BUCKLE, Claude W. (d. 1904)

Published two notes on Coleoptera in the Lough Foyle district of Ireland in Irish Naturalist, 9, 1900, pp. 2-11, 130. Johnson & Halbert (1902) p. 536, note: 'of recent lists, apart from those for which we ourselves are responsible the most important is that by Mr C.W. Buckle of the coleoptera of the Foyle district. In it he has made many additions to our beetle fauna, and his list is further valuable as showing the species that inhabit the north western extremity of the Island'. (MD 12/01)

BUCKLEY, C.

Smith (1986) p. 106 records that insects collected by Buckley (mainly Coleoptera and Lepidoptera) in Ecuador were purchased by the HDO from Mr Higgins in April 1872 for £4-15s. Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me there are beetles collected by Buckley in the Rippon collection, NMW. (MD 12/01)

BUCKLEY, G.G.

Listed in the Naturalist's Directory, 1904-07, as interested in Coleoptera and Mollusca. His address is given as Norwood, Oldham. (MD 12/01)

BUCKNILL, L.M.

Published seven notes of captures of beetles at Wellington College and Southampton in EMM between 1897 and 1900. The Rev. H.S. Gorham identified his specimens. (MD 12/01)

BULL, E.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, as interested in British Coleoptera. His address is given as Mansfield Road, Nottingham. (MD 12/01)

BULL, W.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860, as interested in British Coleoptera. His address is given as Darwin Street, Birmingham. (MD 12/01)

BULLOCK, E.F.

Published eight notes on Irish Coleoptera between 1897 and 1935 several listing additions to the Irish list (listed in Ryan, J.G. et al., (1984) p.53.) There are various references to him in Johnson & Halbert (1902), where he is listed as 'Bk'.

Is this the same E. Bullock, perhaps, whose name appears on specimens in the R. Wilding collection at Liverpool Museum, the Bedwell collection at Norwich Museum, and in the collections of the Manchester Museum? (MD 12/01)

BULLOCK, M.

This name appears on various specimens in Doncaster Museum's general collection, e.g. Harpalus azureus from Portland. (MD 12/01)

BULWER, J.

Mentioned in Stephens (1828) 1, pp. 54 and 114. FLS. (MD 12/01)

BUNNETT, Ernest J. (1875 - 1949)

Senior Maths Wrangler at the University of Cambridge where he acquired a MA. Taught at Oswestry and at St. Dunstans, Catford. Retired to Hastings in 1939 but moved to Redhill at the start of the War. Interested in beetles, photography and water-colour painting. His collection of beetles is now at the Juniper Hall Field Centre. He collected in various areas including Box Hill where he took Cymindis axillaris, Playcis minuta, Cryptocephalus coryli and nitidulus. (I am grateful to John Owen for this information which was passed to him by John Sankey). (MD 12/01)

BURCHELL, William John (23 July 1782(?) - 1863)

In a well-researched account of Burchell which Edward Poulton delivered in a lecture before the British Association in Cape Town on 17 August 1905, Poulton described him as 'by far the most scientific and greatest of the early African explorers' (The lecture was printed in the Report of the British and South African Associations, 3, 1905, pp. 57-110, and subsequently reprinted as a separate by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1907).

Burchell was born in Fulham on 23 July, probably in 1782, though this is not certain, the eldest son of Matthew Burchell, a wealthy nurseryman. The facility with which he wrote Latin and French suggests that he received a good education. In 1805 he was appointed 'Schoolmaster and acting Botanist' at St. Helena by the East India Company. He remained there for five years before moving to Cape Town at the start of the South African journey, covering 4,500 miles, which is partly described in his Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, 1822-24. By September 1815 Burchell was back in St. Helena on his way home to Fulham. Here he remained for ten years, working on the large collections of insects, mammmals, plants and other specimens of natural history which he had collected, and preparing the manuscripts of his books on South Africa.

On 10 March 1825 Burchell set out for Brazil, via Lisbon, Madeira, and Tenerife, and landed in Rio de Janeiro on 18 July 1825. He then spent three years in further travels and collecting before arriving at the city of Para, whence he sailed for England on 10 February 1830. Upon his return Burchell again settled in Fulham to work on his collections, until 23 March 1863, when, at the age of eighty one or two, he committed suicide.

Burchell's interest in coleoptera certainly existed by the time of his first visit to St. Helena, for 'a few fragments' (Poulton, op. cit.) of the insects he collected during this visit survive in the HDO, including the type of Haplothorax burchelli, the large carabid which Hope named after him. All of Burchell's extensive collections (except plants at Kew) including his other entomological collections are also in the HDO and are accompanied by manuscript catalogues and related material. These are referred to by Poulton in 'The Collections of William John Burchell, D.C.L. in the Hope Department, Oxford University Museum', Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., 13, 1904, pp. 45-56, and are listed in Smith (1986) pp. 70, 106-7. As an instance of their size and scope it is worth noting that Burchell, in a manuscript account of his Brazilian travels, recorded: 'of insects I found from sixteen to twenty thousand specimens (at a guess)' (Smith records 18,315)

The entries in his notebooks testify to Burchell's considerable gifts as an observer of nature. His recognition, for example, of the close superficial resemblance of the Longhorn Amphidesmus analis to the Lycid beetles with which he found it, and that of Promeces viridis, another Longhorn, to a fossorial wasp, are, perhaps, the earliest allusions to the vast subject of mimicry. Similarly, his notes on the stridulation of Passalus and Prionus appear to be the first recognition of this phenomenon in these beetles.

Gilbert (1977) lists three references to Burchell apart from the account by Poulton, and there is a review in EMM, 43, 1907, pp. 68-69. (MD 12/01)

BURGESS, George

A Captain who received the MC. There is a box of insects, including Coleoptera, collected by Burgess in Bogota, Columbia, South America, in the Weaver Hall Museum, Norwich. (Accession number 982. 1977). The specimens are in poor condition. (MD 12/01)

BURN, G.H.

Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me there are beetles collected by Burn in the Rippon Collection, NMW. (MD 12/01)

Tony Irwin informs me that there are Burn insects in E.A. Butler's foreign collection of Coleoptera and Hemiptera at Norwich Museum. (MD 10/03)

BURNELL, Edward

A collection of insects including British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera was sold by Burnell at Stevens's auction rooms on 23 May 1892. Chalmers-Hunt (1976) p.126. (MD 12/01)

BURRELL, John

At one time was Rector of Letheringsett in Norfolk. Published the first local list of British Coleoptera: 'A Catalogue of Insects found in Norfolk' in Trans. ESL, 1806, 1807, 1809 and 1812, pp. 101-240. The list included 807 species listed in Marsham (1802) and 39 others new to Britain. Burrell also published a note on Lygeus micropterus in Transactions of the Aurelian Society, 1, 1807, 73-74.

He was a subscriber to Denny (1825) and according to a typescript in Norwich Museum gave insects to the Norwich Society in 1825.

The Carabid Pogonus burrelli was named by Curtis after Burrell who first found it in this country at Salthouse on the Norfolk coast. Dawson, however, soon showed the species to be synonymous with the continental P. luridipennis, Germar. FLS. (MD 12/01)

BUTLER, Edward Albert (17 March 1845 - 20 November 1925)

Primarily interested in Hymenoptera and Hemiptera but did publish several notes about beetles, e.g.'Otiorhynchus sulcatus destructive to ferns', EMM, 27, 1891, p.223; 'Lebia crux-minor at Gomshall', ibid., 28, 1892, pp. 267-68; and several notes on beetles in wasps' and hornets' nests. Trevor James informs me that there are many specimens collected by Butler in the collections of North Hertfordshire Museums at Baldock, and Michael Taylor informs me that there are further specimens collected by Butler in the Museum at Perth. Hydradephaga in the Manchester Museum bearing the initials E.A.B. were presumably taken by him. Mentioned in a letter from E.C. Bedwell to Dr Allan, 3 December 1941, in a folder in Liverpool Museum of material relating to the B.S. Williams Collection: 'I took on the disposal of the libraries of E.A. Butler, Easbery (?) and Stott as they were personal friends...'.

John Owen tells me that he determined Myrmecoptera brevipes new to Scotland. He is mentioned by Morley (1899) p.6.

There are obituaries of Butler in Ent., 59, 1926, p. 24; Ent. News., 37, 1926, p.126; and by W.E. China in EMM, 62, 1926, p.24 (including portrait). (MD 12/01)

Tony Irwin informs me that there is a large collection of foreign Coleoptera and Hemiptera at Norwich Museum which came with the Bedwell collection. It includes specimens from T.V. Campbell; F.B. (Frederick Bates?); G.C.B.; Dr Boutarel; G.H. Burn; H. de Busson; Dr [Malcolm] Cameron; G.C. Champion; Elliott; G. Guyon; Harry Johnson; F. Morey; F. Muir; S.A. Neave; R.M.W.; Rev. T.A.M.; H.H. Smith; F.M. Thompson; B. Tomlin; and T.V. Wollaston. and that is one drawer only! Tony assumes that Butler 'accepted' much of this material from the NHM, "Certainly a lot of the of the specimens appear to have typical NHM labels and accession numbers." (MD 10/03)

BUTTERWICK

G.J. Arrow records in FBI Lamellicornia, Rutelinae, etc., 1917, that Butterwick collected Adoretus costopilosus at Dehra Dun in the United Provinces. (MD 12/01)

BUTTON, D.T.

Listed in the Ent. Ann., 1860 as interested in British Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His address is given as Harwood Place, corner of Rye Lane, Peckham. (MD 12/01)

BUXTON

Ashley Kirk-Spriggs tells me that there are beetles collected by Buxton in the Rippon Collection, NMW. Is this Patrick Alfred Buxton, perhaps (1892-1955) the well known Medical entomologist who worked on the tsetse fly? (MD 12/01)

BYDDER

Mentioned by Stephens (1828) p.107 as 'a very active collector'.

Perhaps this is the same Bydder to whom William Bond refers as 'my old friend and instructor in entomology' (Entomological Magazine, 1, 1833, 212). He is known to have collected in the New Forest. (MD 12/01)

BYERLEY, B.J.L.

Listed as a member of the AES in 1947 and 1962. The first record states that he was interested in beetles only and the second that he was interested in Diptera and general entomology. His addresses are given as 48 Elmgrove Road, and 3 Courtfield Crescent, Harrow, Middlesex. I am grateful to Trevor James for pointing out to me that Byerley is mentioned in G.T. Gimingham 'Notes on the list of Hertfordshire Coleopera...', Trans. Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc. 24, 1955, pp.136-145. (MD 12/01)

Last updated: 24 November 2003